erragal

I am having this bug and have posted a separate thread. I haven't checked in the game yet if it's a display bug or an intended change but I agree completely that it should be laid out as part of the penalty for the class (this one in particular seems way outside the bounds of any of the other melee subclass penalties and really everything except the wizard schools (which are there for flavor and clearly indicated))

Is it seriously intended that the Berserker sub-class of the barbarian has -3- less ability options and no capper for his signature ability? I'd like to know if this is intended or something that got screwed up at the last minute. It certainly makes the class as a whole lose most of its' luster (Especially considering I wanted to use the Spirit tornado side...) I could at least see him having a completely -unique- three passive tree with different abilities, but to actually remove a whole tier from a class that while very fun has a narrow pool of actives doesn't seem to match the design of the rest of the game. Is there a single other melee subclass they did this with? EDIT: I mean ghost heart still has heal companion which doesn't even make sense. Just seems really peculiar.

I'm going to stream my game from time to time this weekend. Very roleplay/in character where I'll try to have fun with the dialogue and even voice some of the characters. Analytical, immersive fun with a character rife for moral conundrums. Hope to test the immersion of the game. http://www.twitch.tv/postpigeon Here's a brief background to set the motivations for my playthrough. Outenne Death Godlike, Druid Old Vailian Dissident - The crispy carapace of decaying beetle shells weathered translucent after fortnights of rats gnawing for scraps of delicious insect innnards tastes of rotten lemon; physically bearable but conceptually revolting. So I try not to lick my lips often because then I get to thinking about it rather than enjoying the oddity of fragrant citrus breath. So it's not all bad, being me. Just mostly, especially at the start. Frankly I'm bloody ugly and the constant peeling chunks of exoskeleton flaking off my face doesn't give me very long to flash a winning personality. Everyone asks me, “Outenne, so how did you survive being a disgusting demon baby?”. Ok, so they don't actually say those words but the narrowed eyes and clenched jaws send the right signals. Mostly luck I would say, as everyone in my swampy backwards Old Vailian fishing village was covered in mud, filth, and a thick mucus-like oil the resident 'healer' made to keep the more dangerous predators away. No surprise a place like this has a grotesque cursed child. In a way I was an asset to a ****hole like that. Almost a symbol of their identity and what with all that magical potential accompanying my creepy affliction face it was only a few seasons before I was 'donated' to that village shaman figure. My actual parents were gone before daybreak the first night I was away but how can anyone blame them. How would you feel watching yourself birth a crusty bug faced monster? Beatings, queer almost sexual psychological tortures and an occasional dose of insightful simple life philosophical ramblings comprised my formative years. Eora is a hard place and I learned to read, concoct disgusting yet effective tinctures, and how to run a cult. That, of course, was the racket he had going. Yet he never treated it as a game to be played with the people, but a challenge to protect them from their own limitations. Never bend the world to your will, instead guide others through the maze. I don't think much of his name but on the ledger sheet of life I consider that crazy swamp rat and I even. All things must change and civilization won't ever let you forget it. My village, as many others in Old Vailian, was swallowed up in a rash of raiding from the Eastern Reaches Vailian Republics. Fancy representatives in their poofy clothes extend the arm of trade only to drag us down and stomp the entire place into the ground. Cannons, raping, enslavement...the standard operation. By this point my primal magic had come into its own and assuming the form of a boar I slipped away during the chaos. Still regrets that I couldn't be stronger, couldn't have predicted this would happen. Seeing the predatory drive of civilization as I began my journey to the Eastern Reaches; the effects of this colonial era leaves me cold. I sit here bells after the full moon watching a Revuan drifter attempt to catch crabs in the dark; the only time he can find a way to eat without being accosted. I sit here and know that this type of world, this 'society', is not the way I want things to be.

That's the first time I've heard ANYONE accuse Pillars of Eternity of being simulationist. Are you really sure you've played the game?Are you in love with hyperbole? Do you normally throw out other people's modifier words to twist their sentences into a narrative that allows you to try and attack their credibility?More. More. More. > And it is, factually, more of a simulation of fantasy combat scenarios than IE. As an rpg it is never actually a simulation. That makes no sense...the entire point is to represent complex minutiae with numbers. I'm really concerned that you still don't grasp abstraction layer yet. Please open your mind to new ideas, stop living in the past. It's almost frightening how neurotic your social interaction style is. Do you want to voice chat me? Do you need an irl friend to calm you down? Did you get bit by too many spiders as a kid? I can't fathom why you take something so innocuous, non confrontational, and factual and attempt to construct a conflict out of it. I'm really worried about you. What the difference between sensuki's "attempt to construct a conflict" and your passive-aggressive escaltion of the those conflicts? Your telling him to chill out and then giving him reason to react that way at the same time. Did I create the thread in all caps? I am definitely not escalating, I'm diverting. I want him to be a better human being and argue in good faith. I don't actually care at all about the design outcomes of the game;I gave obsidian money because I trusted the product they would create. Reason to react what way? He chose a comment I made to another person, and intentionally misappropriated what i said to construct a false narrative. That's deceptive, period. I am certainly confrontational but I am not misleading in what I take issue with. And considering how many people have repeatedly pointed out his predatory argument framing to no avail, you are just enabling him by claiming he has an ' excuse '. There is no excuse. Sadly these aren't the EJ forums or this wouldn't even be necessary.

That's the first time I've heard ANYONE accuse Pillars of Eternity of being simulationist. Are you really sure you've played the game? Are you in love with hyperbole? Do you normally throw out other people's modifier words to twist their sentences into a narrative that allows you to try and attack their credibility? More. More. More. > And it is, factually, more of a simulation of fantasy combat scenarios than IE. As an rpg it is never actually a simulation. That makes no sense...the entire point is to represent complex minutiae with numbers. I'm really concerned that you still don't grasp abstraction layer yet. Please open your mind to new ideas, stop living in the past. It's almost frightening how neurotic your social interaction style is. Do you want to voice chat me? Do you need an irl friend to calm you down? Did you get bit by too many spiders as a kid? I can't fathom why you take something so innocuous, non confrontational, and factual and attempt to construct a conflict out of it. I'm really worried about you.

Your last point is why there's endurance/health. Their abstraction layer is actually that most attacks aren't causing physical damage but exertion /weariness/fatigue. Taking raw health damage is actually really dangerous with perma death on. But perhaps that is the misconception overall: this game is aiming to be more simulationist than the original ie games actually were and it doesn't sit well with some people.

No it's a penalty that affects characters that move. Design a character that doesn't need to and you have no penalty. This is easy enough even you should understand. In fact I know you do because you just bragged about your awesome characters you designed in 3.X that bypassed moving so they wouldn't be stopped from full attacking! The imbalance is not AS severe that's true. But that is a bar so low to clear it's barely worth mentioning. It also does not logically follow that just because casters don't completely own non-casters that melee is "just fine." Why are you focused on casters anyways? I mentioned ranged weapons multiple times now. I also never said it had to be incentivized. I said there had to be a real reason to use melee weapons. What's the reason if devs keep penalizing it? No they objectively cannot. I DMed that stupid system for a long time (and I never had to handle casters with kid gloves) so you are seriously tempting me to go so very very off topic but I am going to resist. Why are implying that casters don't need to move? If anything melee characters should need less drastic repositioning once they achieve engagement in this game. Casters are significantly squish and really don't want to get engaged upon or directly attacked. It affects one type of melee build that shouldnt exist at all because it's an exploitative way to play. And as for your dm skills: you were soft, and lacking creativity. Unbalanced parties shouldnt work prior to level 8\9 spells and even then can be taken advantage of. All your bluster and system bitterness just tells me you let the rules play you.

You calling it a bad system doesn't make it bad. You know that right? Using extremist qualitative statements like that to further your narrative is the issue. That persuades no one. It's a system you don't agree with. Many people do agree with it. From that we can conclude it is likely neither inherently good nor inherently bad (like most systems). These talents aren't arbitrary, are they? You only use that word because they legitimize a system you disagree with. They then create more variance in playstyles between individual avatars, not less.

For me the absence of options punishing excessive running create an optimal way to play that doesn't represent any sort of a fantasy combat scenario. I love the idea of a hyper mobile character being enabled by a series of choices. This makes it a playstyle for those interested while properly representing how superheric it is to actually fight that way.

Yes you did indicate that because you said you could get aoos (s means plural). So if you want to have a meaningless semantic argument you should have said AN AoO.You aren't bringing some sort of incredible revelation to light about AoO's and Engagement. I already brought up it's purpose in my first post in this thread where I said the exact same thing. Inability to full attack after movement wasn't to create decisions it was a screw up by the designers. One of many. I am not bringing up 3.0/.5 etc. because it's a great system. Quite the opposite. I did not list every single way players came up with to circumvent the movement penalties. I already mentioned using reach weapons and yes charging is another way. Thanks for proving my point. The players response to penalizing movement is finding a way to circumvent those penalties. They didn't revel in the "tactical decision making this created" anymore than you yourself did. Please keep agreeing with me. Of course the absolute easiest way was to just use archery or spells. We see the same effect in PoE. I don't have time to explain how wrong you are. Melee people don't dominate the 3.X at any level. There are whole essays on this stuff but that's irrelevant. What's relevant are the similarities between the two systems vis a vis movement and melee and the player's responses to them. Why should movement penalize melee fighting? Because realizarm? Bad reason. This isn't a simulationist game. Players need real reasons to prefer a melee weapon. If we go by realism everyone would be using pirate style but they took that bug out of the game. EDIT: I am also aware you were not referring to 3.X exploits. This movement speed penalty does NOT stop kiting! You yourself have admitted this punishes MELEE more. It's not a movement speed penalty, it's a recovery penalty which applies to all characters equally. It's not targeted at anyone. Also PoE does not have the raw caster imbalance disparity of 3e so no incentive for melee needs to be given. I still can't parse your argument from the other stuff you said. Melee people could, at one point, output more raw damage with more safety at certain level breakpoints in 3e. Most people just had nice gms that were afraid to punish the casters fragile egos.

Yeah and I've repeatedly mentioned how this is represented statistically. Why don't you like numerical representation of combat factors? Do you still not understand what abstraction is?

I will reply this time but this is completely incorrect. You are simply against player input. Saying something is incorrect does not make it so. Holding your ears and yelling lalala will not make the other ideas dissappear. This goes back to the roots of pnp combat design. You aren't representing everything on a one to one basis. Why have reflex saves for damage spells if that isn't your characters natural ability to roll out of the way. Micro. Macro is you anticipate where the enemy caster is aiming for and you move prior to his spell animation completes. Scatter your party strategically (player input) you begin your abilities from your new position while his is wasted. This is macro movement. Player input is all over the place. Trying to reframe the argument doesn't make it go away. Microing a character so he never has to make any statistical combat rolls on defense while consistently making offensive combat rolls is using a macro movement systems to circumvent gameplay and create a rudimentary micro system. It would make sense if that was the way the game was designed. However the existence of engagement (A fact that exists in this game. Non negotiable at this stage) informs us what philosophy has been taken. Attempting to say it's an incorrect philosophy is too late....why not accept what this game is and try to work within the given framework to improve implementation. Railing against reality may help you feel better but it's wasted energy.

The issue is fundamentally what moving your character represents in a squad based tactical simulation versus what you want it to represent. It's not that you have to specialize in moving to be good at moving. It's that moving and doing something else at the same time is a skill in and of itself. Moving your character doesn't represent ' dodging an arrow ' or ' avoiding a fireball '. It represents your character repositioning wholesale several yards in order to have a new tactical position. If you are making that decision what it means is your original position is untenable. If you pick your original positions better then you shouldn't have to move as often. Introducing a penalty on your damage output when you move creates an incentive to pick your position carefully. The playstyles you want them to enable don't make logical sense. Think about what you want them to actually represent for a moment. Visualize what a guy with a two handed sword running backwards swinging it full speed whole never stopping to plant his feet or aim actually would look like. All the while somehow never actually getting in range to be hit himself. This is why kiting in games like this while you may enjoy it from a visceral playstyles perspective are things they're trying to excise. It's a wholly illogical conceptual idea.

Maybe if you spent more time fighting in virtual environments you'd know what you were talking about. PoE is not based on a pnp system though it certainly has a few DnD touchstones.For example engagement is just attacks of opportunity in 3rd edition DnD and it is also impossible to take a move action and full attack(usually) in 3rd edition. Sound familiar?It's certainly based on pnp combat abstraction principles.Well aoo threat is completely different in that you could take aoos against anyone in your threat range instead of being limited by your engagement number. I actually prefer the PoE system because it's ludicrous to assume you can just whack whoever walks by you if your attention is on existing combatants.I'm not sure the point you're trying to make about move + full attack. Please be more coherent?And as for my virtual combat time...I know what you guys are talking about its how I know you want to exploit systems, not have a balanced game experience. Impassioned cognitive dissonance is still, ultimately, dissonant. No actually youre limited in the amount of AoOs you can make. It's only once per turn without a feat that let's you do it equal to your dexterity modifier. Please know what you are talking about before you speak. So those are the engagement limits of 3e dnd and it's clones. But the designers were smart enough to realize that people wanted SOME movement to occur so they added the 5 foot step and the tumble skill. I was very coherent but my mistake was assuming you knew anything about DnD which I shouldn't have. In DnD you cannot move and make more than one attack on your turn. So if you are a class (like fighters) that starts getting multiple attacks per turn you do not want to move. Players start doing things like get themselves permanently enlarged and wield a reach weapon so they can use their full attacks. OR they use archery Because movement penalizes them. It's a serious flaw in the system. It's even worse for classes like monks who get a lot of movement oriented abilities so they can run around the battlefield... except they don't want to do that cuz then they can't full attack. You really couldn't be more wrong. This has nothing to do with exploitation. It's something that makes spells and ranged weapons even more powerful while making melee worse than it already is. What purpose do you think it is serving? What exploit is it closing?Nothing I said indicated you get infinite number of attacks without the combat reflexes feat, did it? I said whoever(or grammatically whomever). The issue I was bringing to light is that engagement and aoos are meant to represent that within a melee fight you cannot be occupied with everything around you and protect yourself. Full attack after full movement was designed to create a decision between tactical movement and offensive output;it's a decision that rewards properly planned position. What we call strategy. Your other points still don't make any sense. I wasn't referring to exploits in 3.0\3.5 I'm referring to exploits in IE games from constant kiting. Things that the limited full attack option restricts. As for the balance between casters and melee that has everything to do with the legacy of the dungeons and dragons system and an expectation for high level spells efficacy. Melee characters have power spikes in 3.5 from levels 8-14 where they can completely dominate the game. You're also crazy, crazy wrong about my 3e experience. I was creating one shotting shield charging paladins, and reach weapon ceiling walking psychic warriors to circumvent those limits. This just isn't a discussion about 3e mechanics (which are fun for rules lawyers but bad for storytelling flow). Edit: And movement should penalize melee fighting. That's because movement in a tactical simulation rpg is not micro, it's macro movement. Your micro is represented by your statistics.

I know you had a rough go of it and you're sensitive so let's differentiate. When a person is being aggressive, closed-minded, demeaning towards others and someone points it out...that is not an insult. You may feel insulted by my temerity...but your behavior led to the result. If you don't want people to highlight those behaviors than correct them. There is an enormous difference between calling out behaviors and trying to tell someone they have a developmental disorder. Specifically if he had said "Erragal you're very confrontational and preachy " that's 100% true. But he failed to address anything real and instead relied on trying to be "funny" while simultaneously disparaging real humans with development disorders (people I work with no less.) Also not irony. I'll let you hash that one out.

Turn speed does not affect the recovery/attack speed of a unit. It only affects your ability to begin moving to the side or behind you from your current position (or turning to hit other targets).I actually would not have complained if this game had turn speed/turning mechanics - but it doesn't. It would have been fun to run in circles around an Ogre who couldn't turn as fast as you. Here's a situation where you said something that was flat-out incorrect (Dota has no movement penalty). You were proven wrong. You, instead of admitting you're mistake, refrained the argument to say "oh no what i meant to say was Dota doesn't affect your recovery speed when you move". Yet again, you argue in bad faith. Shifting the goalposts, backtracking, diverting the conversation. Don't worry I'll keep pointing it out because I'm a nice guy that way.

But Sensuki. That would be an exploit. We cannot have exploits. You cannot possibly use game mechanics in unintended ways in order to win encounters. We better just remove all mechanics that can possibly result in emergent gameplay. That'll show those nasty exploiters. Next time they'll have to use a trainer to cheat. Mwahahahaha. Edit: Seriously thought, that'd actually be great. I'm not a fan of DotA/2 at all, but there's a surprising amount of things you can learn by looking for input in non-standard locations. Do you believe it helps your perception to accuse someone of having a development disorder and then negatively frame them for that disorder? All it really does is display that you're not arguing in good faith. You have an emotional agenda and when points are presented that counter it you attempt to discredit the validity of the speaker by comparing them to someone you have deemed unreliable. I'd suggest being more cognizant of how insensitive you come off. Anonymity isn't a reason to be so cruel. It's just showing off your true nature. Emergent gameplay by the by, does not involve situations where the game systems have no capability to react. Infinite kiting in a numbers abstracted system will always favor the player because you're always going to be a step ahead.

Maybe if you spent more time fighting in virtual environments you'd know what you were talking about. PoE is not based on a pnp system though it certainly has a few DnD touchstones.For example engagement is just attacks of opportunity in 3rd edition DnD and it is also impossible to take a move action and full attack(usually) in 3rd edition. Sound familiar? It's certainly based on pnp combat abstraction principles. Well aoo threat is completely different in that you could take aoos against anyone in your threat range instead of being limited by your engagement number. I actually prefer the PoE system because it's ludicrous to assume you can just whack whoever walks by you if your attention is on existing combatants. I'm not sure the point you're trying to make about move + full attack. Please be more coherent? And as for my virtual combat time...I know what you guys are talking about its how I know you want to exploit systems, not have a balanced game experience. Impassioned cognitive dissonance is still, ultimately, dissonant.

At it again? Trying to downplay people's arguments with childish language. Don't put words in my mouth. DotA has variable turn speeds for every character. So you are actually just lying if you've played that much. Turn speed affects your ability to change position and punishes you for over extension. It is very decidedly a movement penalty. Never mind animation speeds always being an issue. It's weird how easily you lie, exaggerate, and demean peoples point of view when you want something your way. Have you considered counseling?

Something else: It's important to keep in mind that deflection and reflexes defenses are numerical values designed to represent the ducking/diving/rolling/circling/foot by foot repositioning that occurs in micro moments during combat. That's why this is a pnp based system and not an action rpg. It's not intended in pnp that players need to have 1 to 1 evasion of enemy attacks with mobility ; that is an exploit built into the IE engine which simply was not intended. It certainly circumvents the bounds of AD&D.

All goes back to abstraction of a fantasy combat scenario to best represent logical outcomes. It's obvious there's a subset of people interested in this game who have only ever fought anything in a virtual environment. Spend a few hundred hours watching professional mma, boxing, fight a few martial arts matches yourself, hell go have a sit down conversation with a local SCA member. You know what never works in a real fight? Running backwards while swinging a weapon weakly at the person chasing you. Biophysics and momentum are both against you in that regard. There's a sentiment that combat in a fantasy conflict reproduction should be highly reactive. This just doesn't reflect what fighting is about at all. Tactics involve predicting what your opponent will do and -beating them to the spot-. Position is established in advance because changing position is a tell: you're giving the opponent the ability to predict your future position and telegraphing your intentions. The poster who suggested Lol or Dota is on the right track: I would go play a bit of a moba. Smite isn't bad either. It'll allow you to realize how terrible your tactical mind is when 13 year old outsmart you and then you'll understand that you're not asking for the game to be more tactical...you just want it to be exploitable. Oh and ty based Sawyer. I knew from your hardcore New Vegas mod that you understand what makes a great game. Keep doing what you do.

There hasn't been a single crpg since the IE games that come even close to being as good as IE combat. You don't want those "retarded" 90's mechanics; I don't don't want the absolutely horrible 2000's mechanics. Drakensang: The River of Time has a superior combat system to the IE games. It's missing a lot of the -character- of those games but from a mechanical balance and fluidity standpoint it accomplishes all of the goals of the IE games. I think the biggest issue with those games is western players dislike of the Dark Eye system particularly its' relatively low magic world. Even the strongest combat spells are more supportive than game changing. This is a flavor issue though and should not change an objective evaluation of the mechanical implementation of an abstracted RPG combat.

That's why I linked a different thread where a similar discussion of this issue occured between two posters sans the hostile, arrogant tone. I don't agree that melee engagement is perfect by any means...but taking all of his energy and drive towards -polishing- the mechanics and brainstorming new ideas as to how to make it work would be more beneficial than staunchly focusing on an idea based on a preconceived notion. More importantly is that while passion and ideas are really important it's just as valuable that the forums be welcoming to all ideas. While you say 'the devs won't let one person create all the ideas' there's a tipping point where high volume argumentative posters with little objectivity shift the voice of the forum. It's not whether the devs will listen to him or not it's the people he's bullying out of ideas or just going 'wtf I don't want to deal with that guy'. Slowly the only ideas the devs have to persue revolve around that. It's damaging towards casual people that want more information about the game as well. This has nothing to do with the professionalism of OE but a broader sociological fact of online communities. I mean I was a contributing member to the old EJ forums and what made that place great was that attitudes like this got moderated just as heavily as bad information. I appreciate your point of view and my goal is not to stifle true feedback but that I see the signs of someone who is warping other positions and using seedy argument tactics to belittle others and force his ideological points across.

I didn't make an assumption. I actually gave you a practical deconstruction of -how- you show your motivations to be selfish. Using anecdotal evidence of other people supporting you doesn't change your intentions. I had individuals liking my post and posting in favor of me as well. It's irrelevant to the information presented. Your first statement in this quotation contains no content. It's a circular postulation complete with melodramatic emoticon designed for affect. Please become more of an adult. You have what the world of psychology calls "Cognitive dissonance". When presented with a collection of information that you disagree with you ignore the evidence that would require a reevaluation of your position and instead construct alternate explanations that allow for your position to exist. My argument has nothing to do with 'preferring automation'. I play plenty of games that have absolutely no automation at all and require intensive manual input to accomplish the goals. If you had paid attention to the information presented with an eye towards resolving differences as opposed to staunchly maintaining your position (The problems with being an ideologue) you would have comprehended that my issue is a philisophical one based on the concept of what an RPG is. So I will reiterate: A system which has no way to force a melee engagement with a numerical system as opposed to relying on 'tricking' the AI into being sticky is not adequately representing the characteristics of a skilled melee combatant. Being that the goal of an RPG is to create an abstraction of a complex scenario that is not related to the players ability to manipulate the situation it is relevant to find new ways to accomplish this goal. Adding additional techniques and scenarios to allow for melee characters to disengage is certainly viable to further polish the system. For one there are a number of disables and knockbacks that can allow for safe disengagement. I don't see -anything- wrong about having a significant punishment for disengaging from melee engagement without the proper training or outside assistance. A bookish professor isn't going to 'escape' from a trained MMA fighter in combat. This is why I continue to push you to examine your viewpoint as an ideology rather than a considered objective ideation. If the goal is to design a game that better abstracts a complex fantasy combat scenario than it's actually BETTER for melee combat to be so dangerous. The 'micro movement' within combat is represented by the ability for people to automatically dodge/parry/block attacks. You have an ideological construct in your head that has created a vision for what -you- have determined to be the ideal gameplay experience rather than envisioning the goals of a fantasy RPG combat system from the ground up. You give off the impression of someone obsessed with one particular permutation of these systems rather than the history of these systems as they've progressed. Derisive laughter on the internet? Do you often attempted to dehumanize people in order to progress your point of view? Have you ever considered the type of person it makes you that when confronted with an opposing point of view you feel a need to attempt to insult someone for their particular point of view? Is that the type of person you would like to be? I'd reccommend you reevaluate your choices in the way you present yourself. Attempting to bully people is a sign of low moral character. You may think it's 'how the internet works' but the strength of being a better person is the ability to separate yourself from the 'normal' way of doing things and choosing the 'better' way of doing things. As stated multiple times in my original post and already here: manual input isn't an issue for me. I believe that a sticky numerically based melee engagement is a better system for representing the nature of combat. If you run from someone you are opening yourself to serious harm. Adding more mechanics and ways to successfully disengage is a necessity but someone completely untrained in physical hand to hand combat shouldn't have a way to personally extricate from those situations. This is something we can discuss for once. Without mentioning IE or any past game can you actually explain what you consider to be objectively poor for gameplay purposes by punishing the player for turning their back on a melee opponent? From my perspective and your consistent messaging within this thread you are mostly concerned that the current system leaves little option for micro movement to allow you to 'game' combats and constantly move people around. It severely limits the ability to 'kite'. The ability to have to use supportive knockbacks/cc's in order to free up a character's mobility and reposition that person is a far more tactical setup. There seems to be a confusion on your part that 'real time with pause' must mean 'freedom of movement'. Certainly repositioning should be important but melee should be a dangerous place. You can still reposition by pausing as an enemy is doing their charge maneuver, to avoid an enemy spell (either mid cast or even while the projectile is firing), to avoid a melee enemy GETTING into position. The ONLY scenario you continually bring up is one in which you're SUPPOSED to be punished for getting into. Being a low health character in melee range SHOULD be a bad scenario; that is a near failure state which it's important to have. Having the ability to correct failure states with a mechanic that has no connection to the abilities of the characters doesn't reflect on the goals of an RPG combat system. That is not abstracted...it's what we call 'gaming the system'. I play RTS games. Being able to move to avoid the punishment of melee positioning is a flaw. It reduces tactical gameplay and increases micro gameplay. Now a scenario where it could be more balanced is if you significantly slowed down the tempo of combat and added significant turning time to the game. This would more reflect the positioning changes in a game like Dawn of War 2 where melee units can be caught out of position if they're engaged in melee but reactivity to ranged special attacks is a must to survive combat scenarios. Evaluate how much you've -attempted- to contribute. Five thousand posts? You know what they say about broken clocks. Presentation and basic consideration are important even under the veil of anonimity in order to maintain basic humanity. Throwing in the cliche 'reeks of vitriol' doesn't make something true; It's odd that you are both trying to position yourself as the 'uncaring badboy of the forum' but decrying me for 'vitriol' at the same time. Bit of a contradiction there. Challenging an immature, intentionally antagonistic person does not constitute vitriol in any form. And for your benefit: you should change evocative to provocative.

Mechanical skill is not game theory skill. And who says I'm referring to myself? I can play Dow2 which requires infinitely more micro than any RTwP game. However mechanical skill determining the efficacy of a particular character archetype in performing their fundamental strengths doesn't reflect the goals of an RPG game. I would ask you: If you want mechanical skill to affect your character why are YOU here? That's what a game like Bayonetta, Vanquish, Blazblu, Company of Heroes, Dota2/LoL are for. Games where the abstraction layer isn't mean tto be present. 4e was a video game system that never got turned into a proper game. It has a lot of excellent ideas that should be used but people are afraid to touch it because it didn't resonate well in the PNP environment. Melee Engagement doesn't have to necessitate a lack of movement during combat. One of the primary issues with lack of movement is short combat resolution timelines. Multi-faceted combats with longer resolution will allow for more re-positioning of characters. Improving enemy AI so they make better tactical decisions (Spiders dropping down in your back line, casters that teleport, boars that charge through ignoring enemy engagement) will change the way combat operates and force you to move as things are occuring to avoid being engaged yourself. Melee Engagement is also a tool for the enemy to create threatening situations. Control casters will be squishy and being engaged is a threat; if you have perfectly free movement then you allow player mechanical skill to override the natural vulnerability of these characters. This is why the philosophy of relying on micro to 'save' your characters is in effect an exploit. The value of these 'hard' sticky systems is that they actually create a threat/necessitate a response outside of just pause + reposition. Pause + reposition doesn't enhance tactical combat scenarios it simply adds to mechanical micro. A game can be real time and still be tactical. You have 3 spiders dropping to your back line and a line of enemy skirmishers charging forward...you'll have to move all your characters to adjust but how you move them will be more dynamic than if you can simply run your melee guys freely around. You have to use your resources more wisely.