IndiraLightfoot

Who'd keep the bad parts? They'll glean through all kinds of feedback. We are but one source. They have QA teams, and the devs obviously improve the game as they go along. Keep the suggestions coming, folks. It's what these forums are for.

In Indira’s words: ”In a gibberling-infested forest to the west of the road south of Beregost we ran into a handsome man, round about midnight. He introduced himself as Bub Snikt, and he said that he knew there are ogres nearby. When I asked him about the iron crisis, he just waved it off. He needn’t any metal when he’s hunting. Then he dove into the foliage again, like a predator ready for his next kill. It felt safe having him around, so we rested well into the next day in a glade full of apples and berries. A squirrel bounced here and there, and it displayed some odd behaviour. Furia thought it was trying to warn us about something. Perhaps it was, as we left our makeshift camp behind, we came upon a submerged house in a boglet. And then suddenly, out of the sepia-coloured water rose an undead horror. It was a ghast, swinging its claws like a windmill. Tulippa and Furia turned into a needle cushion, but it just kept going. However, finally, Anarcon sank his axe into its back, whereas Sparkur thudded his mighty mace into its chest cavity. The two weapons met with a loud clang, and the ghast was no more. It slid slowly back into the bog whence it came.” ”Nearby, we found the entrance to a cave. It was guarded by a gang of well-armed hobgoblins. One of them had some boots, with a name burnt onto the leather inside – ’Zhurlong’. Tulippa examined them and said that they increase the wearer’s stealth and…. I snatched them before she could finish that sentence. Zhurlong! That’s the thief that took 35 gp right out of my pocket. I guess we’re even now, with me walking around in his boots. The cave itself was small. A coffin-like larder sat in the middle of it, with five healing potions inside, plus a few coins, no doubt an emergency stash.” ”Later that day, we ran into trouble with the law again. A number of flaming fist mercenaries stopped us, and accused us of being bandits. Although I knew we’re far worse than that, I said that we too were on the hunt for bandits. When he asked who’d hired us, I needed a lie, quickly. I glanced around, saw a milestone that said ”Nashkel”, and claimed I served a lord Dolced from there. They bought the story and let us go. That was for the best, since they were very well armed.” ”Further south, after plenty of skirmishes with hobgoblins – they just seem to get better and better – we met an undead that hissed his wishes of eating our flesh. Soon enough, we met Lord Foreshadow, seemingly from Neverwinter, but he was from Waterdeep, as it happened. He just did some shopping in Neverwinter twice a year. I was just about to punch him when he bid us farewell and left us with his peculiar, but still strident gait.” ”In a small gorge, at dusk, we encountered a wolf, a single wolf. Furia had been wandering to the west by herself a bit, as she had heard a slithering nest of lizards she wished to acquaint herself with, when she yelled: ’That’s no ordinary wolf. Behold, its speed! Behold, its eyes! Beware!!’ I took out my finest arrows, and Tulippa ripped out her gilded darts. Sparkur, most predictably, let his huge bolt of lightning fly against the beast. It hit home first, and the horrific wolf was badly burnt. Anarcon plunged his axe in between its ears, and it didn’t even crack the skull up or draw blood. Luckily, the wolf’s ferocious attack missed Sparkur, its canine teeth unnaturally elongated. I let go of my arrow, and it was as if the wind itself sped it up, only to wedge it straight into the mouth of the gaping beast. It fell, silently, and no blood seeped out anywhere. Tulippa said that we’re lucky to be alive. This creature was a vampiric wolf – extremely rare and extremely dangerous.” ”Hobgoblins and kobolds co-operated in an ambush against us when darkness had descended over the sandstone cliffs. The kobolds fired their shortbows, while the hobgoblins held the frontline. Furia’s sleep together of the latter, and Anarcon’s fury of the former. Up on a ledge, we saw a half-naked geezer. He was trembling and mumbling in the drizzle, almost as if listening to music in a dance barn. He said he was a hermit called Portalbendarwinden, and he urged us to read a book. Big, big mistake!! I told him to stuff his mumbo-jombo and any books he had up someplace warm and wet. He became threatening, screaming about me aura, and that’s when it all snapped, not my bow string, but his neck.” Day 12, 13 Mirtul, 1368: ”Eight hours later, we arrived in Nashkel. Now it’s just a matter of finding the mayor. To the west, we saw a farm. I picked the lock and broke into the kitchen, but as luck who’d have it, a wimpering boy squealed to his father that I had entered the premises. I managed to open two chests and take silver necklaces, money and a chainmail, but a darn drawer was squeaky, so old pops called for guards. And very soon, eight Amnian guards stood in the doorway. Good thing, I had practised somersaulting in the garden of Candlekeep. I simply jumped over the jolly bunch and fled. I snuck into a farm not far from it, and things went much better. Outside, on a ploughed field, a woman named Karp was unhappy with life. Crossing the bridge, a bizarre wizard, Edwin, wanted to hire us as assassins to kill a woman: Dynaheir. We asked for a reward lest we consider it, but he refused to give us any, and said that we should know our place. In the manor house, I had the party guard the bottom floor, while I ransacked the upper one. In a bed room, I met Samantha, a lovely noblewoman. She didn’t mind having me there at all. We had a cupper and some scones, and she gave me the tip of clearing out the monsters in Nashkel mines. All the while, Furia helped herself to some fine scrolls in the library downstairs.” ”A small boy by a wattle-and-daub wall was afraid of us, but still managed to stutter forth a story about crazy Captain Brage, who went missing a few days ago, and rumour has it he’s roaming the forests around Nashkel like a maniac. And speaking of maniacs. We met a sturdy man called Minsc. He said that his hamster didn’t like our tone. I squeezed it by its fat belly, making it eep, and replied: ’How do you like that tone, then?’ Already in a good mood after those weird incidents, I tricked a beggar into giving me a copper instead of the other way round. At the local inn, the Belching Dragon, when we’re having a well-deserved ale, a disgusting travelling sage by the name of Volo began to cite history for us. We wondered if he at least knew anything recent, and he mentioned the guard that had disappeared. I told him it was just a long version of the same story a child had just told me on the street. He was affronted and told us to leave. The Amnian guards in the barracks were also running us out of their sweaty establishment. The plump bounty officer Oublek, however, was very happy to see us, and gave us 200 gp in return for us having obliterated the bandits. One thing was weird, though. He called me Greywolf. Well, a reward is never just anyway. And mayor Ghastkill was really keen on us clearing out all the trouble in them Nashkel mines. Moreover, the storekeep asked for winterwolf pelts. How grand! And Rasaad, a sun soul monk, serving the Moonmaiden, was a paradox, if I ever saw one. I left him kicking about in that peasant crowd of mockery and misery.” ”No sooner did we step into Nashkel Mines second inn (dust-lung miners are thirsty), when Neira introduced herself as my killer. We had no choice but to fight her, unless we parted with a lot of coins. She must have been a powerful priest. I got held by a spell, the same went for Sparkur and Anarcon. So, Tulippa and Furia perforated that woman with magic missiles, even using scrolls to that end. Poker used his bow and arrow, which he’s reluctant to do – it’s not his forte. Still he managed to get an arrow in between that vizier, and she rattled into a metallic heap of blood and poignant perfume. Another inn-bound bounty hunter. I’m now worth 680 gp. I should kill myself and become rich as a lich. Neira wore a magical helmet – the eyes of truth, making the wearer immune to critical hits, and also it grants the gift of infravision. Sparkur insisted on him having it. When we spent the night at that inn, I had an awful dream. Gorion died over and over, and when I saw his killer in that huge armour, I knew I would get his powers - one day, my strength will surpass his. When I woke up, I mastered a new magical ability, draining my enemies. Sweet, I think. I celebrated this by looting each and every room at the tavern. Nothing but good old gold.” Bonus pic: Feargus Urqhart is immortalized in BG1, in the cemetery of Nashkel, on a tomb stone:

Infinitron: I've taken a peek as well. It's a great endeavour for balancing the attributes, combat-wise and RPG-wise. I agree with Hiro. It won't fix the problems with combat, its feedback problems, its overview problems, its pacing, etc. This is stuff that's up to us to change, if we don't think combat is fine.

DOS was in open alpha/beta for closer to 8 months, not 4. No need to tell me. I was there. I just meant - very much happened in four months time.

Heh! It all depends. Obsidian did the entire IWD2 in 8 months! Think about that, and think about all the changes D:OS underwent in 4 months time. So, the big question is: Will they listen?

Msxyz: I agree. The least we can do is to tell them how and where this feels wrong for a CRPG with RTwP like this and then hope they'll listen.

archangel979: You have certainly put forward a system that's simple, intuitive and deep enough to accommodate for all sorts of armours and combat scenarios. Gratz! Now, fingers crossed for some dev to pick this up and realizing that this would indeed make the game much more fun!

Doppelschwert: What archangel979 just said. And it's all obscure and extremely complicated to keep track of, even at a point in time when you happened to pause the game. It's all redundant and superfluous. Interrupt can be done so much simpler, as in for instance the D&D5 example. people want slighty simpler and cleaner system, with feedback that they can understand. Sure, you can hide a lot under the hood or some blax box, but the more you hide, the more frustrating in a RPG combat system that is meant to be transparent. There are of course lots of PnP RPGs, where all numbers and mechanics are hidden and at GMs discretion only. However, this is a computer game.

Msxyz, Monte Carlo and others: No wonder that you find combat boring and exhausting, where you just have to do combat manoeuvres in the dark all the time and hope for the best. You're definitely not alone in this. And after having read Josh's comments on Interrupt and Concentration from Something Awful -Sensuki posted this under a bug thread - Misses causes Interrupts - I am even more convinced that combat is but a dozen of out-of-sync action queues, many of which will be interrupted, only some start over, others forced on you automatically. Read and weep: "These are the RAW, though I don't currently have the constants handy: *** Here are the basic mechanics for Interrupt (modified from the attack's Base Interrupt) and Concentration (derived from a constant Base Concentration), which are two opposed values used for determining if someone plays a hit reaction when they take damage. It comes down to a comparison of an Interrupt value (from the attack and attacker's stats) vs. the defenders' Concentration values (from the defender's stats) with a random percentile roll. A hit reaction always stops movement, cooldown timer, reloading, and all other actions. Movement, cooldowns and reloads do not reset but are simply paused and resumed. All other actions (attacks, spells, abilities, etc.) are stopped and must be restarted from the beginning. In general, these values do not scale tremendously over the course of the game. They also are generally applied based on the speed and area of effect of the attack. A fast AoE will have a miniscule Base Interrupt. A slow single-target attack will have a high Base Interrupt. The general rule is this: the slower the attack, the higher the Base Interrupt. The more targets it affects, the lower the Base Interrupt. Interrupt Scale: [None] Weakest Weaker Weak Average Strong Stronger Strongest These names are associated with constants. If the constant is adjusted for "Stronger", it will automatically affect everything set to have a Stronger interrupt. Every Attack can have an Interrupt value, though it should be set to [None] unless damage is part of the attack. Note that even if damage is not, in the final tally, applied to the target, it can still be interrupted. However, the attacker must at least score a Graze. The formula for calculating interrupt follows: Interrupt = Base Interrupt * (1 + [{Perception * 3}/100]) The attack roll can further modify this value. The final result increases by 50% if the attack was a Crit and is cut to 50% if the attack was a Graze. Additionally, a Disengagement Attack automatically increases the final result by 50%. A Disengagement Attack that Crits would increase the result by 50%, then that result by 50%. For example, let's say someone attacks with a Sword. The Sword has an Average Base Interrupt. We've defined Average to be 40. The attacker has a Perception of 15. Interrupt = 40 * (1 + [{15*3}/100]) or Interrupt = 40 * 1.45, so Interrupt = 58. Concentration = Base Concentration * (1 + [{Resolve * 3}/100]) Base Concentration is a constant. Let's say it's 50, assuming we want a lower number of Average attacks to call a hit reaction (we may not, which is why this is a constant we can tune). The defender's Resolve is 18. Concentration = 50 * (1 + [{18*3}/100]) or Concentration = 50 * 1.54, so Concentration = 77. To call a hit reaction, the percentile roll needs to be 51 or higher. The roll is 1-100 + Interrupt - Concentration. In this case, it's 1-100 + 58 - 77. It's kinda hard to call a reaction (only on 70 or higher), but it wouldn't be rare. Now let's say with the same characters an attacker is using Stilettos with Weak Base Interrupt. We define Weak as being 30, so the Interrupt is 44 (43.5). With a compared 77 Concentration, the roll now needs to be an 84 or higher to call an Interrupt! If the attacker really wants to call an reaction, he or she may use a Morning Star, which has a Strong Base Interrupt (50). This results in a 77 Interrupt, which exactly matches the 77 Concentration. A roll of 51 or higher (half of all Hits) will call a reaction. On a Crit, the Interrupt is increased to 116 (115.5), meaning even a roll of 12 would call a reaction! A Crit Disengagement Attack would do it every single time, though obvious those attacks have to be provoked. Magical weapons can have a special property (called Superior Interruption) that bumps their set/listed Base Interrupt rating up by one category. E.g., a Stiletto would be set to Weak but be bumped to Average. Magical items (of any sort, but usually armor) and spells/abilities can have a special property, called Interrupting, that adds to the modifier normally calculated from Perception. This adds directly into the percentage increase of the Base Interrupt. Conversely, they can have a property called Concentrating that specifically adds to the modifier normally calculated from Resolve." Intuitive, no? Here I thought I was a nerd loving complex RPGs, with random tables, dice and plenty of rules for everything, but I'm most humbled now.

Hardly B. Gromnir is but a fictive character from BG2, and he haunts this forum until Doomsday. I just wish we got to see more Sméagol, and less Gollum, as it were.

"Gromnir promised, but Gromnir lied." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_gGb_LLT64

That said, watching HelpingHans take on USA (a player name), for instance, in COH2, I do realize that his number of clicks and the precision of them are far, far superior to mine, so at the very top levels, the need for speed and precision is pretty paramount - also the ability to recover from setbacks. HelpingHans excel at that.

Heh, to me the most difficult part is tracking all the simultaneous action decently, juggling quick decisions, strategizing ahead, and then, keeping my cool.

piercehead: I agree, and I've soften up a bit on this issue, as long as combat in town isn't always amped-up-fighting mode on.

I'm at a loss about this as well. Once I found two necklaces of fireballs within one minute, and I could just equip them, nothing more - no icon or anything - unlike scrolls, which do show up on the ability bar. However, I have found scrolls that do that, but when you click on them, the animation shows and you hear "click", but nothing happens, and they are not consumed.

I hadn't really played many RTS games longer than a few minutes until Monte Carlo's musings over the COH2 beta made be try it, and I was hooked pretty much instantly. Then, after hundred and hundreds of hours of it, I'm still but a noob, relatively speaking, that's quite some depth for you. Oh, and some matches vs humans are absolutely super-exciting. Your heart is pounding in sheer excitement. The thrill of it all can be almost too overwhelming. However, if you had asked me like two years ago, I had said the same thing as Gorgon.

Infinitron: Thanks for posting this. It sounds promising. Hopefully, rogues and fighters do get to fork out from the get-go into at least two different roles in combat, while still being rogues and fighters.

Monte Carlo on these very forums was the one who lured me into COH2 (Thank you, MC). He's a COH veteran. So, if I had been around when it was released, I'd surely have loved that version to bits too. Sensuki: Thank you. I have read a section of Sensuki and Matt's hard graft, and I can tell you all - there will be scientific findings backing up suggestions of some very welcome changes to PoE's combat system and its attribute mechanics.

Thanks. I get it. PoE is thus a RT computer game with pause, more than a turn-based PnP RPG turned into RTwP. EDIT: This is no sucking up to you, but I repeat what another poster said. I'm looking forward to those more than the next OE update. Can't wait!

But the big difference is no-pause, no? If W3 had 12 units with 4 abilities, that would run something like COH2, which I know well? You're fully dependent on visual input, and the game's not pausing, so you have to keep track of their animations, literally, even looking for windows of opportunity for attack and defence. With pause, it's a different beast altogether. You basically freeze the individual, out-of-sync turns of like a dozen units at one moment in time, so regardless of when you press pause, they will be on different places in their turns - some early, some mid, some at the end. This really makes my decision as a player much more arbitrary, unless there's auto-pause functions drowning me all the time.

Sensuki: Some of that I already knew, but not all of it. Cool stuff! Perhaps this is a blunt question: But why did Josh & Co opt for a system fit for a Moba game, where you control one character in RT only, and then apply this on six party members in a RTwP? Are there any benefits from this at all?

At least it's considerably better. You know that auto-pause function from CRPGs of yore - "Pause at end of turn"? It would get its comeback with everything in sync. If you would use a similar function as the system is now, you would get 6+pets and summons, spread out unevenly, plus enemies on different cycles too. Which is easiest on the player, do you think?

It's even worse than this. I've been thinking a bit more on this, and then I realized that you have a potential party of six members plus summons and pets, and all of their "turns" are indeed ending asynchronously. So, the ideal pausing for maximum player input would be almost in every instant. Moreover, enemies have similar asynchronous countdowns going on, It's a mess impossible to control, even with extreme amounts of pausing. Without a forced flurry/round/turn rhythm for every combatant's actions, preferably visible and clearly shown during combat for the player to make informed decisions by, there will never be a combat mode with full strategy in PoE. This is bad news for those that pause often or those who'd love to use slomo mode, and it's even worse news for those like me, who prefer a more flowing RTwP combat.

Now, that's a nutcracker! I was tip-toeing around a solution like that. Nice, Shadenuat! At least for me, this solves three things: -The ability to be able to stand on the frontline and have more health/sustain more damage is a character quality fit for an attribute, not a class attribute. -Also, this makes the pick of at least one of the attributes a much more interesting and weighty decision. -The idea of a health multiplier in relation to stamina/endurance should stay in that CON/END spectrum of the mechanics.

Brilliant, Palior! Thank you very much for this fantastic vid! I call for this to get stickied in some info vids on PoE thread. I don't want this nice work of art get lost in the stream of topics here.