Sensuki

I think I've had this bug before, although quitting and restarting the game fixed it.

My conclusion is that Melee Engagement/Disengagement attacks are retarded. I wasn't against the Melee Engagement system when it was announced, but after playing with them for a few months all they do is pidgeonhole your units into standing still in melee - which is banal gameplay.

Still needs to be fixed. The rotation should come from the center of the formation, not a pre-determined location.

Yeah this is really annoying.

x1000

The problem here is that the 'solution' stems from a turn-based mindset, rather than a real time one. The implementation is too close to the NWN version - it lacks an animation, doesn't give very good feedback and isn't even working anywhere near correctly. I (along with the majority) also do not like MMO aggro mechanics. If you want to stop enemies from reaching your backline, you can position them in a manner that makes it difficult for them to get past ... this is possible in the IE games and I used it many times in my IWD playthrough, as after a certain number of 'attempts' the IE AI gives up and attacks a closer unit. Compared to the IE games, PE encounters have been pretty banal so far, with way less enemies.

Maybe for melee, but the ranged units that kite in AoE2 are ridiculously annoying hahah, no human can do it as perfectly as that.

I think this is a bit of a loaded statement. Have you ever played Age of Empires 2 ? Ranged units in that game automatically kited you all the time. It's not like they can't program units to kite. If Ensemble Studios were able to do it in 1998, then there's no reason it cannot be done now. Second, enemies don't need to be able to take advantage of that kind of stuff. Think of games like Starcraft, particularly the Brood War campaign. The 'static encounters' in that game can be somewhat difficult (particularly in the more RPG-style missions where you don't have a base) because the 'encounter design' was good. All those enemies do is follow their simplistic AI clauses - they attack the closest units on sight and sometimes use their abilities. That's it ... but it's still challenging because the game and encounters were well balanced. You actually have to kite, you have to micromanage your units to be able to finish those levels. If you don't, you'll lose your units and not have enough to beat later fights. The reason I use RTS games for an example is because The IE games had RTS-style gameplay, more similar to something like Warcraft 3, Starcraft 2 as opposed to their 3D counterparts like the KotOR games, Neverwinter Nights and whatnot. Kiting has always been a part of RTS gameplay. It is as much in Single Player as it is in Multiplayer. The developers can try and fight kiting if they like, but I think doing so is resisting natural RTS gameplay, why not take advantage of it instead ? As shown in my above IWD video, you can't just sit all of your party members and stand still and attack Belhifet because he does too much damage combined with status effects, you have to micro your characters off him when they get damaged otherwise they will die. I assume that was part of the normal design/balancing for that fight ... I have no idea why that kind of gameplay is being resisted.

I think I demonstrate that in video 3, there's no occlusion just (awkward) sorting.

Cheers (y). Yeah that would have probably been a bit better. It's more noticeable for shorter characters - Orlans and Dwarves.

Yeah they do, I think Obsidian has gone overboard with blending characters into the background. It's probably a combination of a few things - the ambient system, lighting, filters etc Wouldn't be surprised if they are also applying post-processing effects as well ... for some reason developers seem to love those. I always disable them in every game.

I don't. After playing the game with it on it feels way too much like NWN/NWN2 - aka bad. Infinity Engine games had RTS style combat, in RTS combat you micro your guys and move around. It is common in the IE games to move units around. Here is me fighting the final boss of Icewind Dale When a character gets low, I micro that character back - that is completely normal RTS style unit movement.

I don't think the moving trees/grass looked very good in that video though, what they were basically doing is moving sections of the flat image left and right. I think they cut the feature because they couldn't get it to look right. They could have made tall grass a 3D object or something like water, but I'm not sure if they've experimented with that before. I think the tall grass and the character sorting in it doesn't look that great tbh, rather just have flat grass like in the IE games, YMMV.

Or just remove engagement altogether, as it is essentially a glorified attack of opportunity, except only against specific targets. It also feels like a leftover from turn-based.

Yep, and that's the very thing I suggested when they first announced the change.

I think that's because in the IE games that's always your best option of opening a door. You can bash some locks though, but why would you when you can pick the lock for XP ? In PE there will be (and is) more than one way to get around obstacles such as locked doors, but if you are (only) rewarded XP for picking locks, disarming traps - then why would you do anything else if you can get the XP for it ? And if you do want to take the other option, such as bashing the door, or going the alternate route, people will double back and pick the lock/disarm the trap for the XP.

zerotol has more.

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/news_archive/31.htm#144hz_ips "Below we bring you some news from AU Optronics about some of their forthcoming panels. Surely of most interest is a new 27" panel (M270DAN02.3) currently in development which will be based on AUO's AHVA panel technology, equivalent to LG.Display's IPS and with very similar performance characteristics. This is a 27" panel with a 2560 x 1440 resolution, 1000:1 contrast ratio, 350 cd/m2 brightness, sRGB gamut and 178/178 viewing angles. Nothing special you might think - wrong! This will be the first IPS-type panel to natively support 144Hz refresh rate, something buyers have been crying out for for a long time! 144Hz AHVA and 2560 x 1440 resolution, we can't wait!"

Yeah cool, just wanted to get some more info. I agree that the 'flow' of combat is indeed better in some places. Partially due to the changes to the Health system, although I think most creatures have become a little too easy now. They did also improve the Combat HUD UI to show unit actions properly in v301. I find the AI/Engagement bugs really frustrating though, which kind of forces me to use majority ranged characters rather than just one or two. If you roll through the game with a bunch of crossbow/arbalest users it's a walk in the park. I think the Godlike hair looks mostly off on the Fire Godlike models. Nature godlike w/ hair looks fine and some of the Moon Godlike ones are passable. But the Fire Godlike ones all look real strange IMO. It would be cool if one of the heads looked like that awesome portrait with just fire hair.

I did point out specific colors that were lacking in shades compared to others - such as purple.

How is it more fun when you kill most things without even trying ? Did you even notice the AI bugs? @lordkim, I've brought up more obscure/insignificant things than that - such as a pixel missing from the marquee selection box. I am trying to look for anything and everything that could use with some improvement, I don't consider a "good enough" attitude to be constructive here.

I think the leveling up sound in PE is more deafening

I just posted 90 minutes worth of video footage if you're bored

Spell damage (at least from classes) is a bit underwhelming anyway, compared to some of the weapon damage (from firearm type weapons etc). You can find and upgrade weapons throughout the game, but your spells never get any better as well, whereas in the IE games they scale with level.

Good points Hassat Hunter.