Fiebras

Unless you take Hold the Line. That's two. Disengagement hits occur independent of recovery times and they seem to reliably do loads of damage (or at least hit reliably). Im wondering how viable it would be to make your frontliners focus on grabing as much enemies in engagement (thanks to Hold the Line and Fighter modals) and then forcing them to disengage from your frontliners somehow. The disengagement mechanics arent 100% clear to me though, in regards to how they behave when theres loads of enemies engaged with one dude. Does the dude get 10 instant recovery-free disengagement hits when 10 spiders are focusing on him and suddenly disengage, or does he only get 1 (or 2 with Hold the line, more with Fighter modal)? Conversely, do 10 spiders each get a free disengagement hit should the fighter run for dear life? Cause if the answer is yes, being engaged by several enemies suddenly becomes a DPS race or "kill NOW or be killed" situation were your only option is to kill the murder-horde as fast as possible before it overwhelms your characters one by one. I find this interesting and somewhat fun if true, others might not. I do love murder-hordes though.

Which is IMO when it'd be very good - if used as a substitute for pause. The game shouldn't require slomo any more than it should require pause though - that is to say, sometimes. If that makes any sense. I cant think of a single RtwP game in which I havent over-used the pause or felt I needed the pause to play well. I do like to take my time and think things though so that might just be me.

I am not talking about attack animations here. It does not matter if attack animations are done IE way or PoE way. PoE was is more realistic, IE way was to make it look like something was happening instead of everyone standing still for 6s. The other stuff of your post is meaningless when presented like this. Let me give you a equal level response: "Don't let your guys get gibbed." I wasnt adressing you at all, I was tangentially complaining out loud about annoying combat caveats in BG. Dont know were you get that Im talking about animations or whatever. If you find graze spam annoying in PoE then you can also find miss spam annoying in BG.

I see what youre proposing. I dont know. Im not 100% convinced. Id really need to see it in action to give you a definite "yay" or "nay" but I see it runing a high risk of being very gimicky/"game-y". The stealth circles dont break "immersion" because they are a mode you willingly activate. The engagement arrows dont either because you are conciously selecting them. The character circles also dont break it because you get used to them. Having a stealth-like radius circle for engagement filling up every time combat starts...Im not convinced. It could be a simple circle around the characters or something less cluterry. Id like to keep the combat as clutter-free as possible. Someone should do a mockup.

Watching the screen for 30 seconds as 6 people completely fail to hit a near-dead guy in heavy armor gets pretty boring. The missing sounds amplify the effect. Then the guy in heavy armor gibs one of your guys and JUST THEN someone manages to land the killing blow. Dont get me started on mages.

Looking at the crafting menu you can get several +Atribute comsumables so in theory you can make any character you want and temporaly compensate for anything through consumables, Then you have item enchantments. Its not exactly min/max-y since the buffs are temporary and you got to spend money and resources to get them. Same with enchantments. Id like to see how the enchantment thing is balanced as I dont know how many enchantments you can pile onto a single weapon/armor or how rare/expensive the ingredients are.

An animation helps because it isn't instantaneous - it takes time to play and can (should be able to) be cancelled. It gives the player both more visual feedback on what is going on and more control. I agree with animations being better than clutering icons. Though you will have to make the "engagement" animation diferent enough to be noticeable. I dont think it should be cancelable unless its VERY slow. This isnt DmC, its RtwP and while that makes it much more "action-y" than Turn Based combat it shouldnt allow you to do things like that. Yes I know. Im talking of a different animation. Those arrows DO show engagement but it cant get it to behave consistently. One moment my Fighter has one green engagement arrow while being surrounded by enemies that all have red engagement arrows directed at my Fighter. The arrow idea is very good but it needs a bit more polishing. PS: Disengagement damage is also super strong. The AI doesnt seem to take this into consideration as they will gladly disengage the Fighter and recieve 50+ damage, killing themselves. Seems more prevalent in large mob packs and loos very exploitable.

I agree that normal speed should be the speed that everything should be balanced around. Ill also say Ive found slow mode very useful. I am one of those "micromanage EVERYTHING" types though so YMMV. Maybe combat speed in general should be a bit slower? Maybe not, this patch´s combat seem much more comprehensible.

The thing is BB Rouge has Hearth Orlan modifier that either converts 10% hits into crits or makes the roll needed for a hit to be a crit 10% smaller (character creation and character sheet have diferent wordings), in additon to having all the Rouge abilities and having a hax +2 perception on her. I didnt actually check every roll but since the Rouge´s accuracy is 56 with Reckless assault most rolls look like this: Its either BB Rouge´s rolls are high or her accuracy is high enough to compensate for low rolls. Im still not sure how the 10% conversion of hits into crits works or how its factored into the math. The roll calculation only shows the accuracy part of it, not the damage calculations. I agree testing it on Medreth fight isnt the best way to determine it but that fight has one of the highest DT NPCs (Cowled Dward with Brigadine) that is easily accesible. Its lazyness on my part.

I knew you could crit on spells. I however didnt realize you could crit on AOE Spells and that the damage roll was per-individual as oposed to one big damage roll. Fireball just became my favorite damage spell: I dont know what it is, Im simply finding combat this version a whole lot more fun for some reason. Im sure part of the reason is that I can more easily understand whats going on thanks to the combat log. The downside to this is that 1/4 of my screen is ocupied by the combat log as its a bit of a drag to reduce and open it after every combat. Maybe mouse scrolling could be smoother/faster. It feels quite liberating to just just use your per-rest spells every encounter or so without the munchking-mentality of having to save them for important ocasions. It must be the Hard difficulty. Its fun.

Looking at the enchantment list there are some that are 10% graze-to-hit and 10% hit-to-crit. Theres also SEVERAL + accuracy enchantments. I assume all these stack with racial abilities and whatnot. There seems to be several ways to make grazes a thing that doesnt happen often so I honestly wouldnt complain about grazes too much.

After entering and exiting several houses Hendyna returned to her shop. Not sure if bug or feature. If feature the pathfinding needs a bit of work.

The Cowled Dwarf is wearing a Brigadine, which is the same as a Platemail only in addition to being weak to Shock its weak to Corrode damage. Theres plenty of shock and corrode spells available if you wanna go that route.

[Description of the issue] NPC Hendyna was found wandering way out of her shop. [DETAILED list of steps to reproduce the issue AND what to look for] I know not how to reproduce this but heres what I did before finding her: Beat Medreth but didnt cash in the quest. Talked to the farmer about the Ogre, started the Ogre quest. Talked to the Blacksmith about the Blood Legacy Quest. Exited the Blacksmith´s shop and found Hendyna outside moving to the south. She kept trying to walk south even as she hit the wall. [Expected behaviour] Hendyna stays at her shop. [screenshots]

[Description of the issue] The Boar Companion keeps reviving and dying on his own. [DETAILED list of steps to reproduce the issue AND what to look for] 1) Kill Boar Companion 2)Watch the combat log This seems to be more common when you kill the ranger first. [Expected behaviour] The Boar companion stays dead. [screenshot]

+1 In additon to this the shield´s Accuracy penaly is doubled. The Priest´s Large Shield ends up leaving the BB Fighter with 25 Accuracy.

This was an issue in the previous versions as well. Its particulary notiecable with human NPC enemies. The Skaen cultists seem to have this happen the most.

+1 to this.

+1 To this. Armor of Faiths and other buffs (and some debuffs) also affect enemies/alies.

You could rationalize that an intelligent fighter would know how do dodge and use his armor, muscle mass and strength to better avoid damage than a brute thats going in and letting himself get hit. And then a smart Wizard would also be smarter about avoiding damage than a dumb wizard how all "Full YOLOTM" about his spellcasting (Like say Ridcully). I can ratonalize it that way and my IMMERSHUN remains unbroken. Makes sense to me at least.

I think graze is fine. For the record that picture you are showing as evidence in the OP is against Medreth´s buffed up Priest, who was the last guy remaining and as such had the most buffs. He had like 100+ deflection at the end or something and he was a dwarf to boot. Please include this disclaimer. aeonsim is correct in assuming the Cowled Dwarf had very high defenses. It would be nice if people posted their own combat logs. Graze spam doesnt happen against lions for instance.

Well I just tried making a Rogue of my own. A Wood elf instead of an Orlan. I have no idea how BB Rogue manages to get 22 Perception (Orlan gives +2 Elf gives +1), only managed 19 Perception, gave her 20 Dex and 18 Might. In contrast BB Rouge has 22 Perception, 9 Might, and lik 18 Dex. They both are wearing Padded Armor and are using Fine Hunting Bows (lucky drop from inn chests). Tried against Medreth´s group. Well, BB Rouge manages to hit and crit more often and does more damage overall even with just 9 Might. Switched the Arquebus between the two when fighting Lions. BB Rouge still does more damage. Youd think a Wood Elfs would have more crits than an Orlan due to ranged accuracy bonus but it seems Hearth Orlan´s Minor Threat +% crit damage wins out. Im not saying this is hard evudence of anything. Im just trying to figure out why BB Rouge does so much damage.

Yeah but the worst thing you could possibly die to was a Chryssalid.

I think hes refering to the Arquebus, GreyFox. Razsius, do consider that BB Rogue is probably the most min/maxed BB companion. She has 22 Perception (Orlans get +2 perception but even so 22 Perception is downright HACKS since you cant get that much in character creation no matter what combination you go with), her racial bonus is perfect for her (hits into crits), comes with the second lightest armor in the game and has one of the most fast-attacking ranged weapons. Regarding autoattacks The Rogue is probably the class that does the most damage. But then you have things like the Cipher that not only does decent autoattack damage but also has his abilities and CC. Rogues have 25 accuracy, and the only other class that has that are Monks, Fighters and Rangers. I think Rangers can have the same DPS as a Rouge if not more thanks to Marked prey and animal companion bonuses but they are a bit buggy ATM. There are other sources of damage beyond autoattacks though.

Im all for having some enemies have a "frenzied" enough nature to just keep hitting the downed characters while having other more "rational" enemies focus on the ones that arent unconcious. After all, an enemy cant be sure the downed character isnt dead. Of course, this would mean you would place a far bigger priority on "fenzied" enemies as they can actually kill your characters. Sorta like how in XCOM you brain goes into panic mode when you spot a chryssalid and you redirect all your firepower to it even if theres a Muton right next to you.