The difficulty of the game

[J.E. Sawyer]

You might like to look at PE for a better example. Isn't there a slow-motion combat mode they want to include?

 

We already have the slow combat implemented and it works pretty well.  I'm sure we'll be adjusting it more as we fine-tune combat pacing and pathing, but it's an enjoyable alternative to full speed vs. full stop.

[J. Trudel]

 

 

You don't care about a pause Trudel? It would be downright impossible to control up to 6 characters in real-time all with their own abilities/spells also while concentrating on multiple enemies, without a pause button to issue orders.

 

That's why I think RTWP is a dumb system, it's basically the designers admitting that real-time party combat is too frenetic to be controlled in real-time, so they slap a bandaid on top called the pause button. And what does the system accomplish? Just to make the battles superficially look more "realistic"?

 

I said that I didn't cared about how they want to make the battles menageables for 6 characters. If they can think of a way, thats fine with me ! A good AI that you can customize to your exact needs combined with a quick way to adapt or do special things might do the trick. Of course, nothing beat the pause system for now but I do have an open mind.

 

What I mean, Is that it's not the pause system I want. It's control over the battlefield. If I have that, I don't care about how it's done. 

 

For example : I played DA:O on the hardest difficulty never pausing the entire game (unless I really had to pee), switching characters only to adapt to situations. I agree that this was an easy game, but anyhow. This was menageable enough to control 4 characters with no pause. 

 

That's cause DAO was a shallow RPG, try and play BG or IWD without pausing and see how you fare

 

 

Played both games, but you have to admit that the NPC AI is almost absent. If you could program your allies to protect one another, to have your cleric cast heal when a character is low on health or buff and debuff when you fight a harder battle or have your mage cast miscast magic or dispel magic on ennemy spellcaster. It may have been possible. 

 

I don't say one or the other system is better, and I don't care as long as I can menage my battles. 

[jethro]

If you could program your allies to protect one another, to have your cleric cast heal when a character is low on health or buff and debuff when you fight a harder battle or have your mage cast miscast magic or dispel magic on ennemy spellcaster. It may have been possible. 

 

I don't say one or the other system is better, and I don't care as long as I can menage my battles.

Would you really still feel like you are managing your battles if 5 of the 6 characters were just executing a script (even if you made that script) ? If yes, why not write a script for all 6 characters ?

[Lephys]

Well, the first problem is a pacing issue. Pausing mid-combat is like getting up to go to the bathroom when you're watching a scary movie. When you've come back and sit down, all the tension is completely gone and the movie has to start over from scratch to get you worked up again. If you're repeatedly getting up and down or you have distractions (like the movie's playing in the background while you're fixing dinner and you're only looking at it occasionally) it's impossible for the movie to scare you no matter how skillfully crafted it is.

 

The fundamental problem with RTwP is that it can't engage you on that sort of visceral level because these constant distractions from the action are baked into the core of the interface. Every time you pause, the excitement dissapates like the air from a popped balloon and the game has to start all over again from scratch to get you engaged again once you unpause. But you're gonna be pausing and unpausing pretty much constantly.

You bring up valid issues with pausing, but I dare say that things would be a bit different if you paused a movie to alter the plan/decisions of the characters frozen upon the screen, so that they reacted to your direct control and adjusted accordingly to produce wildly different outcomes to the scene.

 

As the slow-mo has been mentioned as being in (and other games are using it), I definitely think that's a very useful tool in mitigating the unavoidable disconnect from flat-out pausing, but, as others have said, allowing the action to simply flow all the way through disconnects you from the aspect of actually controlling the party and its tactics.

[Malekith]

 

You might like to look at PE for a better example. Isn't there a slow-motion combat mode they want to include?

 

We already have the slow combat implemented and it works pretty well.  I'm sure we'll be adjusting it more as we fine-tune combat pacing and pathing, but it's an enjoyable alternative to full speed vs. full stop.

 

It's slow motion all the time or when i press space instead of pause the game goes to slow motion?

[jamoecw]

well to answer the original question:

1.  don't have anything that doesn't have a non meta method countering.

2.  have the AI counter in battle

3.  have the faction that the AI belongs to adapt its members bit by bit to be geared against your tactics from the get go.

 

so if you have 6 mages, and each of them just casts death combo spells, the enemies will spread out/break line of sight/etc. and try to live, and those that do will adapt so that you can't do the same thing twice.  after a day in game or so any battle you have with that faction again will from the start of battle be expecting the death combo spells and you won't be nearly as effective with them, and whatever your cleanup method used for now most of the enemy will be prioritized to be countered from the get go in addition to the death combo spells, assuming that they aren't mutually exclusive.  the cycle keeps iterating itself countering the most effective thing you did in the previous day's battles.

 

that way if you do the same thing over and over the game will get harder and harder until you start adapting, also if the ai can't adapt anymore and something is still working then a change needs to be made, either to the mechanics due to there being no counter, or the ai for not being able to execute the counter.

 

in the end that should ensure that there isn't anything that is the one way to beat everything, and that everything is more or less balanced against other methods.  the down side is the need for patches and constant support for at least a few months after the game is done, as well as decent amount of foresight in mechanics and ai programming.

[Lephys]

 

In other words, if having that 50-damage sword is always perfectly sufficient in taking things down, then it doesn't really matter how effectively you're applying the attributes of that sword to the challenge at hand. Maybe it has a higher chance of causing bleeding wounds under certain circumstances, and a greater chance of doing significantly less damage in some circumstances, etc. Maybe you can change your attack speed by switching stances, at the cost of something else.

This seems like too much unnecessary micromanagement that would be annoying to deal with, rather than something that adds depth.

 

I fear my words misled. What I was thinking of, specifically (and maybe should have specified via example?) was simplistic factors like armor/ability type. Sword A could cause a bleeding wound against no/light armor, but not against medium/heavy armor. And perhaps it does 2/3rds damage against heavy armor, or even against certain enemy types. And/or maybe a critical hit, or an active power attack with it causes bleeding. And with the stances thing I was thinking of the Fighter's modal Defender ability: increase your ability to engage targets (3, up from 1) at the cost of offensive capability. Maybe Sword A provides a different effect in Defender mode than Sword B, etc.

 

I'm not really referring to anything that specifically increase the amount of micromanagement necessary. Simply things that alter your decision-making in whatever amount of micromanagement you choose to do.

Edited August 16, 2013 by Lephys

[Lephys]

Regarding AI countering, even a bit of randomization in the specific going-into-battle strategy chosen by a select encounter's group of foes) would be good. Not in lieu of actual reactive adaptation or anything. But, I just mean that, every group of goblins shouldn't always attack you in the same way until you force them to adapt to provide variety. So, sometimes "arbitrary" variance in the AI is nice.

 

Maybe these wolves are really, really hungry, so they just charge straight at you at full-sprint. Most others you've fought haven't done this (they've circled and tested defenses, etc., and even retreated), so you have to adapt to the difference from the get-go.

Edited August 16, 2013 by Lephys

[J. Trudel]

 

If you could program your allies to protect one another, to have your cleric cast heal when a character is low on health or buff and debuff when you fight a harder battle or have your mage cast miscast magic or dispel magic on ennemy spellcaster. It may have been possible. 

 

I don't say one or the other system is better, and I don't care as long as I can menage my battles.

Would you really still feel like you are managing your battles if 5 of the 6 characters were just executing a script (even if you made that script) ? If yes, why not write a script for all 6 characters ?

 

 

In fact, I would love that, as long as I keep control just in case something go wrong. I'd feel like a general having well planed his battle. But yes to answer your question I would still feel like managing my party. But that's me, I understand this style of play isn't for everyone. In fact I see it a bit like this. You plan the battles ahead so your soldiers know the baselines of how to react, but then, in the middle of the fight, you shout some orders at your soldiers because well... battles are chaotic and not everything may go as planned. Of course, I prefer still fully playing my main character, a bit like a general who wants to be on the front line. 

[Christliar]

I like the AI countering idea actually. That would add variety to your tactics and would keep the combat from getting boring, but that should be in addition to difficult encounters by themselves. Adaptive AI that functions instantly and in the moment (like a real person) would be the best. I have no knowledge of AI coding, but I would imagine that would be a nightmare to code, so I suppose it isn't a very realistic expectation.

 

 

I fear my words misled. What I was thinking of, specifically (and maybe should have specified via example?) was simplistic factors like armor/ability type. Sword A could cause a bleeding wound against no/light armor, but not against medium/heavy armor. And perhaps it does 2/3rds damage against heavy armor, or even against certain enemy types. And/or maybe a critical hit, or an active power attack with it causes bleeding. And with the stances thing I was thinking of the Fighter's modal Defender ability: increase your ability to engage targets (3, up from 1) at the cost of offensive capability. Maybe Sword A provides a different effect in Defender mode than Sword B, etc.

I'm not really referring to anything that specifically increase the amount of micromanagement necessary. Simply things that alter your decision-making in whatever amount of micromanagement you choose to do.

 

Ah, now I get it, but I don't think it would work very well and here's why: If P:E has something like weapon focus and weapon specialization like in D&D, that would severely gimp your character who's specialized in longswords with no way out, because the feats you've chosen are too specific. They can get around this by not including any types of specializations, but I think it's more fun to come up with interesting and viable builds for your character rather than having to constantly switch weapons which just adds unnecessary micromanagement and clutters your inventory. It frankly just adds another button for you to press automatically when you see someone resisting your longsword attacks.

The difficulty comes from the AI itself, rather than any superfluous contrivances like "this sword deals this much damage, but oh wait! it's useless against this succubus, better get that spear out!". It just adds more layers of fluff rather than depth. Flexibility of mechanics adds depth that would allow both you and your enemies to adapt better and with more options.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I don't necessarily want the AI to be smart. Rather, I would like it to reflect the tactics the foes I'm battling would actually use. For instance, a group of savages wouldn't be executing complex maneuvers, they would be charging at the party. IMO, having enemy tactics vary by group makeup would be far more interesting than a universally smart AI.

Edited August 17, 2013 by KaineParker

[Lephys]

Ah, now I get it, but I don't think it would work very well and here's why: If P:E has something like weapon focus and weapon specialization like in D&D, that would severely gimp your character who's specialized in longswords with no way out, because the feats you've chosen are too specific. They can get around this by not including any types of specializations, but I think it's more fun to come up with interesting and viable builds for your character rather than having to constantly switch weapons which just adds unnecessary micromanagement and clutters your inventory. It frankly just adds another button for you to press automatically when you see someone resisting your longsword attacks.

Again, I think you mistook my meaning partially. I wasn't intending overly specific feats and build-related things (although those aren't out of the question, really), but merely physical equipment properties that are circumstantially dynamic. A sword not causing bleeding against a given target hardly makes it useless, or demands that you switch weapons. Not to mention the fact that you'll control more than one character, unless you restrict yourself to a solo playthrough. AND you'll be fighting more than one foe, typically. If your Wizard's spells are suffering in effectiveness against a magically resistant enemy, this doesn't dictate that you MUST pull out a maul and go bash its face in or you lose. You can simply target a different foe, for normal OR even increased effect (weak-to-magic enemy), and have another character who's already not-using magic target that magically resistant foe.

 

Anywho, I was only making examples to emphasize the importance of dynamic prompting of adaptation on the player's part. The specifics can be changed any way you'd like for all manner of reasons, but if things always work the same way all the time (this attack does more damage, this attack does less, etc.), then combat is hardly taking any advantage of dynamic factors.

 

It helps when you use factors in pairs. If a specific piece of equipment yields 2 effects rather than just 1, then when 1 effect is nullified, the other remains. Or, if a fireball deals fire damage AND explosive-force damage, then you've got the opportunity for a foe who's resistant to fire but not to force, or vice versa.

 

Only when you have multiple options to weigh are decisions really substantial. It is like you said. If all but one option is all but ineffective against a certain challenge, then you aren't really left with a choice, now are you...

[Silent Winter]

Reactive AI would be cool (relative to the enemy's intelligence/training as KaineParker suggested, though even tribesmen wouldn't stand still for a 2nd fireball - they might still know enough to scatter unless their numbers were such that 'overwhelming charge' was their tactic ["Zulus, thousands of them"]).

 

I like to control all 6 party members myself (first thing I do is turn off AI, and not just because it has a reputation for sucking).

RTwP is great for me but I'm curious about the slow-mo idea - how slow? Will it be smooth? Can we even control the speed?

Sometimes I like to take my time over decisions in a big fight, especially if things are going sour for me.  But I do remember one frantic battle in IWD when I thought I had the enemy bottle-necked in a doorway, only for reinforcements to arrive on my flank - had to pull back bit by bit, pelting the oncoming foes with magic while my melee characters retreated to cover the mages who could then fall back to the bridge.  I was able to pause and consider of course but it still felt exciting - might have been even better if it was slow-mo, giving me time to issue commands but not infinite time to consider my actions.

 

Don't want an action game though - still want to be able to have at least a little time to consider and issue commands to my 6 party members.

[jamoecw]

I don't necessarily want the AI to be smart. Rather, I would like it to reflect the tactics the foes I'm battling would actually use. For instance, a group of savages wouldn't be executing complex maneuvers, they would be charging at the party. IMO, having enemy tactics vary by group makeup would be far more interesting than a universally smart AI.

most of the time savages are quite skilled at fighting smart.  sparta was quite refined yet was pretty slow to react to things.  but ya the general idea is that wolves and such shouldn't focus the mages behind the ranks of fighters, they wouldn't do that most likely.

[Christliar]

 

Ah, now I get it, but I don't think it would work very well and here's why: If P:E has something like weapon focus and weapon specialization like in D&D, that would severely gimp your character who's specialized in longswords with no way out, because the feats you've chosen are too specific. They can get around this by not including any types of specializations, but I think it's more fun to come up with interesting and viable builds for your character rather than having to constantly switch weapons which just adds unnecessary micromanagement and clutters your inventory. It frankly just adds another button for you to press automatically when you see someone resisting your longsword attacks.

Again, I think you mistook my meaning partially. I wasn't intending overly specific feats and build-related things (although those aren't out of the question, really), but merely physical equipment properties that are circumstantially dynamic. A sword not causing bleeding against a given target hardly makes it useless, or demands that you switch weapons. Not to mention the fact that you'll control more than one character, unless you restrict yourself to a solo playthrough. AND you'll be fighting more than one foe, typically. If your Wizard's spells are suffering in effectiveness against a magically resistant enemy, this doesn't dictate that you MUST pull out a maul and go bash its face in or you lose. You can simply target a different foe, for normal OR even increased effect (weak-to-magic enemy), and have another character who's already not-using magic target that magically resistant foe.

 

Anywho, I was only making examples to emphasize the importance of dynamic prompting of adaptation on the player's part. The specifics can be changed any way you'd like for all manner of reasons, but if things always work the same way all the time (this attack does more damage, this attack does less, etc.), then combat is hardly taking any advantage of dynamic factors.

 

It helps when you use factors in pairs. If a specific piece of equipment yields 2 effects rather than just 1, then when 1 effect is nullified, the other remains. Or, if a fireball deals fire damage AND explosive-force damage, then you've got the opportunity for a foe who's resistant to fire but not to force, or vice versa.

 

Only when you have multiple options to weigh are decisions really substantial. It is like you said. If all but one option is all but ineffective against a certain challenge, then you aren't really left with a choice, now are you...

 

 I suppose you are right. That does make you think which foe to attack with which character. I like it, it stops you from just controlling all 6 characters at once and overwhelming a single foe with everything you have. I don't think bosses should have those kinds of resistances though (unless they have reinforcements during the fight), it would make sense for them to be more powerful sure, but it simply removes 1 character (or 2 if your rogue is longsword speced) from the battle. Maybe not completely, but at least 1/2 of him/her.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

 

I don't necessarily want the AI to be smart. Rather, I would like it to reflect the tactics the foes I'm battling would actually use. For instance, a group of savages wouldn't be executing complex maneuvers, they would be charging at the party. IMO, having enemy tactics vary by group makeup would be far more interesting than a universally smart AI.

 

most of the time savages are quite skilled at fighting smart. sparta was quite refined yet was pretty slow to react to things. but ya the general idea is that wolves and such shouldn't focus the mages behind the ranks of fighters, they wouldn't do that most likely.

Perhaps "savages" was a poor word choice. I do believe that the general idea is fantastic for flavor, and would also require players to adapt strategies depending on then enemies they were facing. Edited August 17, 2013 by KaineParker

[Lephys]

I suppose you are right. That does make you think which foe to attack with which character. I like it, it stops you from just controlling all 6 characters at once and overwhelming a single foe with everything you have. I don't think bosses should have those kinds of resistances though (unless they have reinforcements during the fight), it would make sense for them to be more powerful sure, but it simply removes 1 character (or 2 if your rogue is longsword speced) from the battle. Maybe not completely, but at least 1/2 of him/her.

Well, for what it's worth, I agree with the sentiments that people "shouldn't" be pausing 90% of the time, etc. But, all things in moderation, . Really, as long as the game isn't designed such that making combat into a constant slideshow is always the best possible tactic, with no allowance for any bout of fluid combat, I think it's fine. I mean, you can't stop people from doing what they don't need to do, and someone's unnecessary over-use of pausing in their own game isn't going to harm my playthrough in the least.

 

Also, I don't think "everyone just use cool abilities all on this one thing at a time!" should be a viable tactic, but, again, because of the design of combat challenge. If you make that the best tactic only in very specific situations, then you're not requiring anyone to rabidly pause and make sure everyone's always "cooldown spamming" their abilities on a single target, etc. Thus, there once again is no real pause problem.

 

In short, I believe I understand your very valid concerns for the flow of the game, but I don't think the removal of pausing does anything but replace a problem with another problem.

 

And (regarding the general discussion again), for what it's worth, there's nothing at all wrong with the idea of wanting direct control over only your main character, who acts as a sort of field commander for the rest of your party, while relying mainly on their AI "plans" instead of constantly manually issuing new orders and piecing their behavior together at every step of the combat. While I personally like to control all the characters, I honestly prefer a bit of a hybrid (which is, probably for the 5th time that I've now mentioned this somewhere on these forums, why I liked the idea of the Dragon Age AI tactics settings so much, even though they were a bit lacking in implementation).

[Christliar]

 

Well, for what it's worth, I agree with the sentiments that people "shouldn't" be pausing 90% of the time, etc. But, all things in moderation, . Really, as long as the game isn't designed such that making combat into a constant slideshow is always the best possible tactic, with no allowance for any bout of fluid combat, I think it's fine. I mean, you can't stop people from doing what they don't need to do, and someone's unnecessary over-use of pausing in their own game isn't going to harm my playthrough in the least.

 

Also, I don't think "everyone just use cool abilities all on this one thing at a time!" should be a viable tactic, but, again, because of the design of combat challenge. If you make that the best tactic only in very specific situations, then you're not requiring anyone to rabidly pause and make sure everyone's always "cooldown spamming" their abilities on a single target, etc. Thus, there once again is no real pause problem.

 

In short, I believe I understand your very valid concerns for the flow of the game, but I don't think the removal of pausing does anything but replace a problem with another problem.

 

And (regarding the general discussion again), for what it's worth, there's nothing at all wrong with the idea of wanting direct control over only your main character, who acts as a sort of field commander for the rest of your party, while relying mainly on their AI "plans" instead of constantly manually issuing new orders and piecing their behavior together at every step of the combat. While I personally like to control all the characters, I honestly prefer a bit of a hybrid (which is, probably for the 5th time that I've now mentioned this somewhere on these forums, why I liked the idea of the Dragon Age AI tactics settings so much, even though they were a bit lacking in implementation).

 

You are quoting the wrong person :D I like pause and I don't think it really interferes that much with the flow. Micamo is the one you should be quoting ;d I also want to control everyone.

[Lephys]

You are quoting the wrong person :D I like pause and I don't think it really interferes that much with the flow. Micamo is the one you should be quoting ;d I also want to control everyone.

Good heavens... *facepalm*.

 

I literally read your response, then my brain just switched to "Yeah, so about the effects of pausing... which is TOTALLY WHAT YOU JUST READ! Nope! Don't double-check! Just quote and type!"

 

Hahaha. I'm sorry about that, truly. Looks like it's to the closet with me, for a diagnostic. *plugs into diagnostic station... makes shutdown noise*... x___x

 

Can I mulligan?

 

MULLIGAN:

 

Yeah, you wouldn't want a situation in which you were fighting a single, potent enemy (like a boss) and it was all but immune to several of your characters' main means of combat effectiveness. That's always highly annoying. It's on up there with those "Only ONE type of damage can hurt this guy!" bosses/foes.

 

But, what I was getting at was that, maybe he's resistant to, say... bleeding. Well, if the two potential effects you can cause with longsword-spec'd characters are bleeding (damage over time) and wounding (slowed movement/action speed... purely for example), then you simply can't rely on the oodles of damage over time from bleeding cuts that you might normally have used quite often. But you can still utilize specialized effects of the longsword (delaying the enemy's actions), and still deal damage. And yes, you could think of that as "well, now I can only do 1 effect instead of both." But, just because the longsword can produce 2 effects, in this example, does not mean that the norm of the game is a bunch of enemies all susceptible to both effects from longsword attacks.

 

In other words, I think things that restrict the way in which you can use things are far better contributions to fun and interesting combat than things that just shut doors in your face. "Your sword isn't effective in the way you've been used to so far, but it's still effective in another way(s)."

 

Really, the idea works better when expanded out to a character build, rather than just a weapon, so zooming in on the weapons/equipment like that wasn't my best example. Maybe your Fighter doesn't hit as hard against this boss, but there are more factors than damage-per-hit that determine effectiveness in combat. So, maybe you have to make better use of the other factors to make up for that partial detriment. IF you want maximum combat effectiveness, that is. It probably won't be that you can't beat the boss without employing the absolute perfect strategy against him, chocked full of micromanagement. It'll just be tougher and a closer fight, perhaps. Or maybe you just focus on the other characters a bit more, who are still quite effective against the boss (if he's got a strength, he's got to have some sort of weakness that makes other people/attacks/tactics even better against him than they usually are against general foes). *shrug*. That's the beauty of a whole party.

 

Sometimes, the easiest effectiveness boost will simply be from swapping weapons, but plenty of times there will be alternatives, methinks.

Edited August 17, 2013 by Lephys

[Christliar]

 

Good heavens... *facepalm*.

 

I literally read your response, then my brain just switched to "Yeah, so about the effects of pausing... which is TOTALLY WHAT YOU JUST READ! Nope! Don't double-check! Just quote and type!"

 

Hahaha. I'm sorry about that, truly. Looks like it's to the closet with me, for a diagnostic. *plugs into diagnostic station... makes shutdown noise*... x___x

 

Can I mulligan?

 

MULLIGAN:

 

Yeah, you wouldn't want a situation in which you were fighting a single, potent enemy (like a boss) and it was all but immune to several of your characters' main means of combat effectiveness. That's always highly annoying. It's on up there with those "Only ONE type of damage can hurt this guy!" bosses/foes.

 

But, what I was getting at was that, maybe he's resistant to, say... bleeding. Well, if the two potential effects you can cause with longsword-spec'd characters are bleeding (damage over time) and wounding (slowed movement/action speed... purely for example), then you simply can't rely on the oodles of damage over time from bleeding cuts that you might normally have used quite often. But you can still utilize specialized effects of the longsword (delaying the enemy's actions), and still deal damage. And yes, you could think of that as "well, now I can only do 1 effect instead of both." But, just because the longsword can produce 2 effects, in this example, does not mean that the norm of the game is a bunch of enemies all susceptible to both effects from longsword attacks.

 

In other words, I think things that restrict the way in which you can use things are far better contributions to fun and interesting combat than things that just shut doors in your face. "Your sword isn't effective in the way you've been used to so far, but it's still effective in another way(s)."

 

Really, the idea works better when expanded out to a character build, rather than just a weapon, so zooming in on the weapons/equipment like that wasn't my best example. Maybe your Fighter doesn't hit as hard against this boss, but there are more factors than damage-per-hit that determine effectiveness in combat. So, maybe you have to make better use of the other factors to make up for that partial detriment. IF you want maximum combat effectiveness, that is. It probably won't be that you can't beat the boss without employing the absolute perfect strategy against him, chocked full of micromanagement. It'll just be tougher and a closer fight, perhaps. Or maybe you just focus on the other characters a bit more, who are still quite effective against the boss (if he's got a strength, he's got to have some sort of weakness that makes other people/attacks/tactics even better against him than they usually are against general foes). *shrug*. That's the beauty of a whole party.

 

Sometimes, the easiest effectiveness boost will simply be from swapping weapons, but plenty of times there will be alternatives, methinks.

 

This just seems like the normal D&D resistances, like undead being immune to sneak attacks and elementals being immune to their own element etc. ;d I'm 99% sure that P:E will have this. It works exactly like how you describe it, but sometimes more annoyingly especially for a rogue against an undead boss. ;d But that's *fine*, it adds variety and makes you focus on other characters.

[Micamo]

> You encounter an Allip.

 

> You don't have any magic weapons.

 

> Kiss the entire party goodbye.

[Christliar]

> You encounter an Allip.

 

> You don't have any magic weapons.

 

> Kiss the entire party goodbye.

This is my fear, too. It could be avoided by not giving enemies any resistances until you get access to magical weapons, but eeehh.We need more information about P:E combat mechanics to make even the vaguest speculations.

[Osvir]

 

> You encounter an Allip.

 

> You don't have any magic weapons.

 

> Kiss the entire party goodbye.

This is my fear, too. It could be avoided by not giving enemies any resistances until you get access to magical weapons, but eeehh.We need more information about P:E combat mechanics to make even the vaguest speculations.

 

Simple. Run away and adjust.

 

OR!

 

Engage -> Lose a party member -> Realize it was too much for you -> Run away -> Prepare -> Kick some ass

 

^That's Hardcore Ironman thoughts. For some more casual thoughts:

 

Save game -> Run into enemies -> Die -> Load -> Meta-Prepare

[Lephys]

This just seems like the normal D&D resistances, like undead being immune to sneak attacks and elementals being immune to their own element etc. ;d I'm 99% sure that P:E will have this. It works exactly like how you describe it, but sometimes more annoyingly especially for a rogue against an undead boss. ;d But that's *fine*, it adds variety and makes you focus on other characters.

"Normal D&D resistances" is part of it. I'm just vying for a system that demands adaptation more so than one that just takes away your capabilities. "This thing can only be hurt by yellow-colored pebbles! Everyone get out your slings and paint! SLINGS AND PAINT, people!"

 

Hehe. I'd rather see a boss/tough foe who's tough by demanding cleverer use of your resources, rather than eliminating all your options. If they want to reduce your ability to do damage to some boss, they could just boost its armor or HP. No need to say "SUCK IT, FIRE MAGE! YOU ARE MEANINGLESS HERE!"

 

I'd like to see a boss that requires that your Rogue employ tactics you wouldn't normally have him employ, because there's usually a much better way of taking on your challenges. Not make your Rogue quantifiably less useful as an entire character. Tactical immunity/resistance, as it were.

[Micamo]

Simple. Run away and adjust.

 

OR!

 

Engage -> Lose a party member -> Realize it was too much for you -> Run away -> Prepare -> Kick some ass

 

^That's Hardcore Ironman thoughts. For some more casual thoughts:

 

Save game -> Run into enemies -> Die -> Load -> Meta-Prepare

Throwing an Allip at the party because it's CR 3 and you thought they'd be fine? I can forgive that, it's an easy mistake for a newbie to make.

 

Throwing an Allip at the party on purpose and knowing exactly what you're doing (especially after saying "Okay guys, so there are no magic items in this setting...")? That's a **** move. **** you.