Sensuki

Just because you can easily outsmart something that wasn't a focus of the development doesn't mean that it's an exploit. Dice Poker in The Witcher 1 and 2 is incredibly easy, I win those almost every time, am I exploiting because I think I'm safe on three twos and I know the dumb AI will resign? I don't think so. Creating smart AI is pretty hard, so encounter design should take into account that the player will probably be able to control the situation quite easily, and make it more difficult in other ways. What? I don't deliberately gimp my character? I have stated that I do enjoy the challenge of stretching the adventuring day as far as possible but I can't really do that in Pillars of Eternity because there's not much resource management, and Major Fatigue is pretty harsh. Usually kicks in before I can even try. Don't worry bro, Pillars of Eternity barely has any resource management for you to rest spam and avoid, so it must be the game for you

Rest spamming is exploiting. It doesn't count, as it completely bypasses the strategical resource management aspect of the game ... kind of like a gold cheat in an RTS. Yes, I know others that did the same thing too.

I did. You think about it - in games you don't play them like you would in real life (unless you're an extreme LARPER). When I play FPS games, I run with my pistol/knife because it's faster. I open doors in weird ways. I spam prone / stand when crossing tight gaps to make myself harder to hit. When playing other games I do the same thing, I do the things that make the most sense to win the game within the rules of the game. Because rest spamming is avoiding the strategical concerns of the gameplay completely. Are you trying to justify it? Rest spammer? I guess. I highly doubt that, because many or most games have AI features that are the same every time you play them. So I suppose by that logic, learning how to easily beat Bowser in Super Mario 64 because you know his exact routine is AI exploiting as well.

Excuse me, but why are you using realism as an example in a game? I play my games like games, thankyou very much. Games should be designed to be played like games, in turn.

How is it an exploit? I can see what the enemy AI is doing just by looking at it and I remember what they do for next time. That's how you win things/improve at things. I didn't outgun people in Call of Duty because I had better aim than other people more often than not, I won because I had better game sense, I could predict what people were going to do, pre-aim the corners/edges that I thought they were going to poke from and slip through gaps in the defenses and shoot people in the back and stuff like that. If I had to straight up fight people, I could outshoot people, but there were people who had more straight up aim/reflexes than I did. Am I supposed to deliberately play badly or something? I don't think so. And once again, this is not the thing that I am complaining about for Pillars of Eternity either, because it's possible to do in ANY game of this type. And I agree, you do not have to play like me to enjoy the IE games or Pillars of Eternity, however I get a lot of mileage from my party the way that I play. But, this gameplay will be present in all games of this type. I think it's a shame the developers don't use it to their advantage or accommodate for it. I'd be designing encounters around it if I had the chance. Indeed. Personally I found Ogre Druids more annoying, because usually no matter what they would get off AoE spells that would hurt multiple party members, and that spell that makes them explode when they die.

PART 3: https://youtu.be/070qcBK1lNQ Steps to reproduce Change monitors from 16:9 (or 16:10) to a 4:3 monitor (CRT preferable) Run Pillars of Eternity, without changing the resolution beforehand Game detects previous monitor settings but changes to desktop resolution in game without acknowledging so in the settings. Exit the game Plug in new monitor / restart PC / etc Run Pillars of Eternity and you get to where I am in the video: Hardware used: AMD HD7970 Catalyst 14.4 Drivers Alienware OptX AW2310 Monitor 22" LaCie CRT monitor

It's the same as anything man, if you don't learn from your experience then how do you get better? It's not an exploit. Just as is remembering what spells enemies are going to cast is not an exploit.

Not really, it's exactly the same as the Infinity Engine games except that the PC's attributes are used in the dialogue instead of the speaker. I asked for them to change it so that only the PC could initiate dialogue during the beta, but they didn't. Well, that's what I said - as that's what happens in the Blood Legacy quest. However, it doesn't really make much difference IMO. The fight wouldn't be any more fun if you were forced to go in the middle, you'd just take more damage. That's the only difference. It's not like you really have to react to that. Actually TBH, I'm pretty sure you could win it really easily if every character either had Lore 1 or Lore 2 and used a Fan of Flames scroll that you crafted. There's a lot of ways to easily win, but not really anything that forces you to adjust to what the enemy does in combat unfortunately.

Well, you can initiate dialogue with whoever you like in the Infinity Engine games too. What if your PC is the tank? There's no problem there. It's not intended, but I don't think it's cheesing. As a Rogue PC, you could also go invisible. ----- In BG1 there's a similar conundrum with Shoal, who gives a male party member the kiss of death. If you're a male PC and kiss her, you die, game over - so you have to send a companion like Minsc instead. If they really wanted they could physically move the party into the position they wanted like sometimes happens in the IE games during cutscenes and stuff like that. I wouldn't really care if they did or didn't.

Yes, and that actually makes sense. What doesn't make sense is a free attack that breaks the rules of real-time.

I think Attacks of Opportunity are unreasonable in real-time. Who says that when you move in game that your character is dropping their guard?

I don't know why people think that slowly moving back is acceptable because if you slowly move away from anything, that's making you an easy target to hit. Sounds like a bit of "this is how it is in D&D" to me. Since AoOs/Disengagement are a turn-based mechanic, the implementation I always liked the most was "Withdraw". Giving up your non-movement action to be able to make a fast/long retreat move. I don't really care what happens, just posting because I'm bored but that's the mechanic I found that made the most sense in turn-based anyway.

In my opinion, spamming rest is exploiting the game. What I mean by that is, if you've only got two level 3 spell slots and you rest every time you use both of those up, then that's rest spamming IMO.

If you know that you're going to get into a fight, why would you deliberately position your entire party in the middle of all of the enemies? Sounds like a case of being braindead to me. I knew I wanted to kill Raedric, and I could see the enemies standing around the dais. That's not metagaming, that's being smart. You wanna know an encounter that allows you to pre-position that is way, way better than this one? The Final Seal Guardians in BG2. Doesn't matter where you put your party, it's still a hard fight. Even the fight against Lamalha and her Amazon chicks in BG1 at the back entrance of the BG1 mines is harder than this one if you go to the mines early in the game.

This is bullcrap. If this is 'true' then one could say that not left lean glitching in Call of Duty 1 is a self-imposed limitation, and because you don't left lean glitch, you're gimping yourself. Or duping items in Diablo 2 or Titan Quest. It's not - it's exploiting the game. I haven't said "LOL casual". I'm pissed off at people who rest-spam and then complain that the Infinity Engine combat was bad or something, because they rest spammed and could use Cloudkills over and over. These people are part of the reason why this game is like it is. Personally, I don't think this has anything to do with it. If what Josh Sawyer says is true, most designers aren't good at games themselves. It's probably just aligning of the stars that Baldur's Gate happened to be developed with an RTS engine, and thankfully it was. I'm not sure why you're going to the lengths you are to try and justify rest spamming against simply playing well (understanding AI targeting) - something that people do in all sorts of games. They would have made the AI as good as they could with the budget that they had for spending programming time on AI. Yeah, I'm a human and I'm smarter than the AI. SCS / Rogue Rebalancing AI is harder to deal with. Who ever said anything about "highest APM tactic"? The game is real-time with PAUSE so there's no such thing as a high APM as if you use pause at all, you can take as long as you like to perform any of your actions. Neither did I say anything about "reactivity" from AI switching targeting. Sounds like you've been mass triggered by someone asking me if I play DotA, which I do. If you read what I actually said, I was complaining about there being not many scenarios where I have to change my strategy or react to enemy actions (other than a few basic ones, which actually includes reacting to enemy targeting - the thing you are accusing that I'm saying the game lacks". I talked about several systemic issues not even remotely related to Engagement or AI targeting. I talked about the unified attack resolution mechanics, armor mechanics, shields, lack of hard counters, lack of immunities, the way in which afflictions work, the lack of strategical resource management. Several other things not even remotely related to what you're talking about. Woah, someone's mad. I accused people of rest spamming, nothing more. Someone mentioned my name in the thread, which is why I came here. People wanted to know why I stopped working on the mod, and it turned into a discussion. If those people had not asked, I would not be here. Personally I don't think I will be contributing to discussions regarding patches, mods, expansions etc because the core design caters to people who didn't really like the Infinity Engine combat that much, who prefer turn-based combat and people who rest spammed the Infinity Engine games. None of those people are me. So sure, I'll complain but I'll let you guys dictate where you want it to go, because I don't think anything is going to save it for me (or several other people who have the same disappointments with the game as I do). I think that's being a bit hyperbolic. Actually understanding AI targeting and using it to your advantage seems to trigger you well, you can smash people in multiplayer by reacting to their targeting as well. I see it as simply a gameplay skill even against a computer - because it's the recognition of what the opponent is doing and making the correct choice in response to it that is the skillful part of it and this is true against human opponents and computer opponents. When you're playing against AI in chess/single player RTS/whatever game - you win by learning what the enemy does, it doesn't matter who they are. An example - Dark Souls is all about learning the 'routine' of the enemy bosses, so that you learn when to block, when to dodge, all that kind of stuff. It is the EXACT SAME THING here. Even when playing competitive games, when you play against the same people multiple times - you learn what they do, and if they don't change what they do (which, most people don't) then you have the means to predict their actions, and beat them. I don't see rest spamming as a skill, because you're completely bowing out of the strategical resource management side of the game, which people who don't rest spam take part in. I actually don't have anything against people who do rest spam, if they find playing the game fun that way - that's fine, but I do have a problem with people coming here saying that the Infinity Engine combat was bad because they didn't take part in several elements of the gameplay by using an exploit. You'd probably hate games like Aarklash Legacy, with your preferences, because that game is all about controlling enemy targeting. I think one of the aims of the design for Pillars of Eternity has been to actually take away the need to adjust to anything. Once you've learned the system initially (which for me, was very early during the beta) there's nothing more to it. You can use the same strategy in most encounters and it works. All I'm doing is following a pre-determined script, and it's boring for me. Sorry, but this is not the best fight in the game. I sent Eder in to initiate dialogue, all enemies attacked him and then I creamed them all with AoE damage, ranged damage and my Rogue coming in late with dual spears. Foe only AoE makes it a breeze to just sit your tank in the middle of all of the enemies in the room and then carefully aim stuff like Fan of Flames over and over again. Those guys also get minced if you use Eder with a Jolting Touch scroll. I also beat it on the first try. It wasn't even hard and didn't require me to adjust to anything they did at all. I won simply by using the same strategy I use to beat everything else. If spellcasters could actually protect themselves properly like they can in the IE games, then it might be a different story.

Re: "Targeting abuse" This is how I go about it Scenario: Archers in Pillars of Eternity target "backline characters" This can be annoying and cause your backline characters to take way more damage in combat than your tanks will. You don't necessarily have to react to it in individual encounters because there's not much of an immediate penalty other than taking damage/possibly facing a KO for those chars. So, I think about why archers target backline characters, what is the targeting clause? Often it's because they have low Deflection, or low DR. I think some enemies even prefer targets based on position in party formation. So one way of dealing with this problem is altering who they target by changing these numbers. You can give backline characters heavier armor, and they won't be targeted by archers. If it's Deflection, well there's not too much that can be done about that. If it's party formation slot then you can flip them around ... put Eder in slot 6, problem solved. If you can't make enemies change targets this way, you can do it through positioning and movement. Some enemies don't re-target very often (melee enemies), archers do though, soon as they can see a character that fits their targeting clause, they will target them. So you can simply either leave such characters out of combat until the archers are dead (hint, kill them first) or you can have them come in late, where they may be targeted but probably won't get many shots off. You can also cheese various enemies by having the characters they are targeting in line of sight, but out of range if you can block off enough of the pathing space. The pathfinding is terrible, so they'll most likely get stuck behind their allies and run on the spot lol. And finally if you don't want to / can't do any of those you can just deal with the archers first - disable them and stuff like that. There are usually a few ways to solve problems simply through understanding targeting in many games, including the Infinity Engine games and Pillars of Eternity. This is just general gameplay sense IMO.

While this is true, I have an issue with the core design of many of the systems. Tweaking those systems will not change the style of gameplay.

I don't see understanding AI targeting as an exploit and it's a mechanic that you are SUPPOSED TO USE in many games, particularly RTS games. You *have* to use it in the Warcraft 2 and Starcraft single player campaigns in the missions where there's no base building. I see it as a skill, and it has helped me play well at any similar game since. The Infinity Engine games use a similar engine with similar mechanics and the combat is very similar. There are encounters in BG2 in particular and in many mods for the game (Harder Yxunomei, Harder Belhifet, Harder X enemies in ToB) that promote using this more, because it is underused in the default game. If I was going to mod the game myself, I would make encounters tougher so that it required smart targeting, positioning and movement in combat more often. Excuse me. Did you even watch my Icewind Dale Let's Play? I man fight enemies in combat and control targeting and health, I *use* the systems and resources given to me to their full extent and by the end of the day, all of my characters are usually low HP, they've all been hit and I used mostly melee characters and didn't kite anyone in circles, just made the odd movement here or there to switch targeting, and often kept several characters away from the fray (like you do in Pillars of Eternity too). Throughout the adventuring day you are given a certain amount of HP, you have your healing resources and you have your health potions. I use them, to the max - and I get the most out of them because I fight optimally. You can take damage only for so long, and there are several ways that you can manage those resources. One difference might be that I actually use every health potion I find. There are LOTS of people that hoard strategical resources like this because they're unsure about when they'll need them. I can't remember who talked about this recently but they basically said that they rest spammed the IE games because it was easier than manually healing or something like that. In Pillars of Eternity, you don't have to do any of that, your tank is always the best character to be taking aggro so you just send your tank in, no strategy or tactics required. Same thing every encounter - tanks forward, everyone else back or coming in late to avoid initial targeting. That doesn't have too much to do with overall tactical feel of combat - it's more to do with the lack of hard counters, the unified resolution mechanics, immunities and stuff that 'breaks the formula', but it is a little bit because of how differently many of the mechanics work such as poison and several of the afflictions, etc etc. Stun and Hiro (and many of the codex BG2 guys) seem to have similar problems to the game with me though, even if they don't have the same playstyle as I do. The severity of my disappointment probably has a lot to do with time/money input vs output I got from the game. I think you're just triggered by the word DotA, as many other people are. People who rest spam are avoiding the strategical resource management from the game - are you trying to deny that? This makes the game less tactical because you can always use your big spells, and play sub optimally. Many people have done this and then criticize the Infinity Engine games for letting them do it. The biggest tell sign is the elapsed time in the game. TBH I think Pillars of Eternity caters to the preferences of people who played like this. Josh acknowledges that people rest spammed in the Infinity Engine games, so he designed the game where resource management wasn't a concern. It's easy to rest spam in Pillars of Eternity, especially on Normal or Easy difficulty. However you're not required to because there's no resource management concern, and then you have people saying "I don't feel like I need to rest spam in Pillars of Eternity, it must be because they've made it more difficult" ... well they haven't really, it's just that there's not really a penalty for being knocked out, you don't need to use potions (they suck anyway). You don't really have to manage your healing at all, not even in combat and there's per encounter abilities. So yes, I can see why people who rest spammed are triggered by my opinions. Perhaps they don't enjoy resource management, or tactical gameplay - fair enough, but there is a large difference between playing the Infinity Engine games properly, and playing Pillars of Eternity.

Yeah it was bs that they didn't even bother to include the HUD.

Did you rest spam as well? Because I didn't. Not my fault if you ruined the game for yourself.

Rest spammer.

Far better discussions of mechanics take place on the Codex than here. There's some useful statistical stuff that comes from here specific to this game though. The only person who was not intent on discussing anything in this conversation is Tartantyco, but all he ever does is post acidic one liners and stuff like that.

Yeah there's not many enemies that require different strategies. There's a couple more than that and that's it. There's more enemies in BG1 that require you to do something a bit different than there is here. Q_Q did moving in combat make you cry or something? With the No Engagement mod, I can move about in combat all I like, and the combat still sucks. The Engagement system is actually one of the smaller problems in comparison to some of the others. And excuse me for wanting combat like the Infinity Engine games. But hey if you don't enjoy tactics, that's fine. Yeah it would be better, but they will never do it. They may raise enemy defenses / DR as Prime Junta suggested but that will only solve one problem, and not the main problem the game has.

I don't drink alcohol

My squishies rarely ever get engaged. Sometimes it's deliberate, like when I send Durance in with a melee weapon on the odd occasion. If they're never at the front, melee enemies won't target them. If they do, ENGAGEMENT LULS. Flanked is never a big deal, I control aggro well enough that my tanks are often flanked but it doesn't matter. Teleporting enemies (Shades/Shadows/Cean Gwla/Stone Beetles) - always know what they're gonna do lol. Shadows/Shades prefer Aloth or low Freeze DR I think, so I just babysit him and insta Blinding Strike/etc as soon as they land. I prepare for charm by sending Eder in alone off to one side, sometimes he doesn't get charmed, but if he does I just wait until it's about to end then coming piling in on the other side of the pathing space ... they re-target Eder and blow them up and if Eder comes at me, I'm already in position and don't suffer from stupid disengagement attacks from him. You do have to use a different strategy for some creatures (Shades, Archer targeting prefs, Charm/Confusion) but they're the exception to the rule. Rarely does it require a tactical adjustment unless you made a mistake in executing the encounter strategy. I play this game completely different to how I play the IE games, because the way I play the IE games is heavily, heavily penalized in this game. It's a load of garbage.