[333 Quick Impressions Thread]

 

What? They already renamed stamina to endurance...

Still a bad name, it needs to be health and they need to call "health" wounds, and the "wounds" need to be called injuries.

 

Lets call Might Damage, Perception -> Accuracy, Int - > Mitigation etc. while we are at it. 

[How to fix combat? It's still the big offender in the BB.]

Please just mod out melee engagement. It sucks. Period. 

[Combat XP - What Just Happened..?]

 

The Best Xp system is still inferior to the best system which is skill gain per-use disregarding grinding use (jumping up and down to increase atheletics). 

Which game does that? The only one I can think of is elder scrolls, but jumping increases acrobatics; not athletics. 

 

 

Unfortunately, no game does it right . And yeah, that was a barb at Morrowind. I just forgot that it was acrobatics. Age of Decadence has a mechanism in place where killing someone (which is a big thing in that game) nets you one combat skill point. Same for civic encounters. That is the best one out there by my judgement. 

[Combat XP - What Just Happened..?]

The Best Xp system is still inferior to the best system which is skill gain per-use disregarding grinding use (jumping up and down to increase atheletics). 

[How to fix combat? It's still the big offender in the BB.]

Did I add remove DT to my list of unnecessary things? 

 

*update*

 

 

1) Two HP pools are unintuitive and unnecessary. 

2) The combat pacing needs severe readjustment. Slowing down action speed would help. 

3) The run speed of enemies is too fast. 

4) The Graze system needs to go.

5) The critical hit chance needs to be independent of accuracy. 

6) AI needs to be more sensible in party as they cancel commands without notice or reason. 

7) Remove DT. Keep armor DR. or vice versa. But not both. In fact, as I see it, DR is totally superior to DT no matter how you cut it. DT is the sole reason that makes Graze a necessity and the other way round. Removing one will ease removing the other. They serve no real tactical purpose other than being passive numbers. 

[Will spells in this game retain the same power and impact that they had in BG and BGII?]

I never understood why spells don't scale in PoE. Is there a particular reason? In the expansion, will it be called Fireball9000? I really hope so. That will make me lol.

I have a feeling that they don't scale because the higher level spells are just the scaled spells of lower level. Need to check though. 

[How to fix combat? It's still the big offender in the BB.]

Knock Down is basically a trip ?

 

yeah. Forgot about that.... NWN/PoE does have it. Did IE games have that mechanic? That only means IWD2 anyway.

 

EDIT :

Also, of course, grapple is missing which was the best monk/fighter feat to neutralize spellcasters.  

[How to fix combat? It's still the big offender in the BB.]

You can add trips to that list. I find it utterly bewildering that the best fighter abilities from D&D never made to the IE/NWN games.

 

 

I think the two HP pools could be changed from the Darklands style which is more unintuitive (sorry Josh) to just Endurance and Health would become a 'Healing resource'. I've suggested this before, but instead of damage being dealt to both pools, damage would only affect Endurance and all Healing would come from the Health pool. It's still mechanically the same in 99% of cases, except that the UI display is more like 4E Healing Surges.

Here's a bad mspaint mockup I did a while ago (it would not have to look like this)

 

 

Say the character enters combat and takes some damage. After combat the damage is healed by their Health Pool

 

 

Something like that anyway. Personally I don't care - but I think that display would be more intuitive. When you run out of Health Pool, you only have your remaining Endurance to run with.

I think grazes are fine, I just think the Attack Resolution system could probably be normalized a bit more, reigning in the extreme misses and crits when ACC-DEF = -XX or +XX. Right now it's very swingy/random.

I am really at a loss with this. Why is it even necessary? What is wrong with a single pool? What is the additional advantage of this system that can't be obtained in a single pool system?

[How to fix combat? It's still the big offender in the BB.]

Hmm.

 

I have a similar list as your Sensuki. 

 

1) Two HP pools are unintuitive and unnecessary. 

2) The combat pacing needs severe readjustment. Slowing down action speed would help. 

3) The run speed of enemies is too fast. 

4) The Graze system needs to go.

5) The critical hit chance needs to be independent of accuracy. 

6) AI needs to be more sensible in party as they cancel commands without notice or reason. 

[How to fix combat? It's still the big offender in the BB.]

Sensuku dude. The idea of AoO in RTwP was that it was Free attack outside of the combat actions allowed for that round. In that respect as PoE has the sleep timer on all chars (the global cooldowns) it would not really make sense here. So overall I feel that you are right about melee engagement. This is something I have always criticized. I do agree that AoOs directly taken from NWN/2 would not work in this game as the core mechanics is not round based really. But I do not see how only blocking a char in the map will help either. IF the action economy was not blocked by the global cooldowns, it WOULD work. i.e. then you could actually make an attack on a moving char. Right now, they could just move past and the enemy would be helpless as they would still be in the cooldown from their previous action. On the other hand, if they are NOT on a cooldown from the previous action, they would potentially risk wasting an attack on a random dude instead of attacking their main target. If they just ran around trying to block others, they would waste all the other tactical options that can be used to make attacks. 

 

I would rather simply add a free attack like AoO to accommodate the problem of moving in the game. 
 

[How to fix combat? It's still the big offender in the BB.]

Reducing combat speed is only going to make an RTwP game better.

[How to fix combat? It's still the big offender in the BB.]

 

No, you need to make a tactical retreat when your units are in melee and have taken damage. The moment you move at all in melee combat, you suffer an instant disengagement attack that has no animation. 

 

Which can be addressed by adjusting how engagement/disengagement works. For example, add a zone of control around the toon, determined by weapon reach and visible in the UI, within which you can move without provoking a disengagement attack. 

 

You're throwing out the baby with the bath water here, Sensuki. 

 

I don't get this idea. So you are saying that there is a zone around the engaging char that is immune to disengagement?? Isn't that totally counter-intuitive? 

[How to fix combat? It's still the big offender in the BB.]

The Infinity Engine IS an RTS engine, and BioWare were devloping an RTS called Battleground Infinity before Feargus Urquhart suggested they use the engine for Baldur's Gate 1. The combat plays like RTS combat. The RPG parts are the to-hit systems and the character advancement.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinity_Engine

 

 

 

 

Yeah. You pointed it out to me already. But the thing is that is only concerned with general display and render. It does not have to mean that the MECHANICS (which is at discussion here) is RTS-like.

 

 

Pillars of Eternity is supposed to play like an Infinity Engine game, I am not promoting that it does any differently. IIRC you prefer the NWN games to the IE games Captain Shrek.

 

 

Actually it says nowhere that it is supposed to PLAY like an IE game. What is says *paraphrase* that it will borrow from the dungeon delving of IWDs. Now why would any one think that is a good idea I am not sure.

 

As for NWN/2: Yeah, I prefer the mechanics as implemented in NWN/2 for the characted development. It is much much better than the 2E for IE games. NWN had a terrific advantage that it was a single char game. Which made it ideal for RTwP with D&D mechanics as far as I can tell. It's just that its OC was utter crap and the expansions were slightly better. NWN2 was yet again a huge improvement in terms of UI and character creation than NWN. Again its core gameplay was best suited for a single char design, which really shows itself in the relevent modules.

 

I do not dislike IE games. But I do not also feel that they were mechanically perfect.

[How to fix combat? It's still the big offender in the BB.]

That kind of gameplay is not "IE-style" though, and PE clearly has not been designed with pushes/slides etc in mind. It's also not turn-based.

 

I think it should be pointed out very clearly in fore front that PoE combat has little to do with IE games. I have a feeling that it was never meant to be like them. So this is really not an argument.

 

 

Tactical movement in combat in any RTS-style game (and thus IE style game) is stuff like retreating low health units to the back for a heal, changing targets in the middle of combat, moving your characters to intercept an enemy chasing one of your characters. You can't really perform this kind of stuff in Pillars of Eternity at the moment if that character is engaged in combat by multiple enemies, you will die from disengagement attacks.

 

The most important thing is the enemy AI targeting clauses. Players need ways for their melee characters to snag enemies in combat. The IE games already had this pretty much perfect. We don't need disengagement attacks.

 

 

That is like your opinion man. You have this strange fixation that IE games are RTS games. They are not. The only similarity is the view and real time-ness. And that ends there. So maybe in your imaginary world they play like RTS games, for most of us they do not. RPGs are move involved and way more complex per unit that RTS games. So this kind of mass action thing is only a general principle in them than being some kind of specific universal strategy. I am of the view that IE games / RT RPG games should try to build on then instead of becoming RTS like.

[How to fix combat? It's still the big offender in the BB.]

Now this is what I agree with.

AoO is a mechanic that was ported over from turn-based. It exists to prevent trap situations where the person who moves first loses - essentially, if you spend all your movement points on a turn to move up to an enemy, you then have to wait until the next turn to make an attack. However if that unit acted after you, they can simply just move away and the character that moved first loses.

I'm not really sure why turn-based designers didn't just split AP into action points and movement points to fix this (something which Underrail FINALLY did), but anyway.
 
In Real-time with pause (or just real time), if you move up to an enemy, they can attack you as soon as you do it, because units act simultaneously in real time.

 

 

This is what I do not agree with:

 

No it doesn't.

 

 

 

Yes, AoOs were carreid over from TB and thus do not fit very well within RTwP. But at the same time they fulfil the role of enabling tactical movement / positioning. I welcome you to suggest an alternative that is not agro based mechanics / "sticky" engagement and we shall see.

[How to fix combat? It's still the big offender in the BB.]

There should be no AoO's they are unnecessary. If you want to attack someone moving next to you - target them yourself.

 

Hmm.

 

I kinda agree with qualifications. I think that AoOs serve an important tactical purpose in that they regulate how the chars move and arrange themseleves on the tactical map. That way there is an added need for attention without it being overtly there.

 

Removing AoOs would take away the tactical part of moving around outside of time economy. As in, the shortest path to your target might not be the best one in all cases.

[How to fix combat? It's still the big offender in the BB.]

One thing they could do to make attack resolutions less extreme is normalize miss and crits to

 

natural roll 96-100 = crit

natural roll 01-05 = miss

 

 

 

This is something I suggested way back.  Right now crits are broken as every point in accuracy is potentially a percent increase in Crit chance.

Also, melee engangement is pretty much a forced mechanics that should be replaced with AoOs. The latter reminds me; the single biggest issue in NWN2 was party AI. That problem seems to have been carrier over here. In NWN2 party members would balatantly ignore set commands and run headlong into AoOs. Worse still they would also start casting spells, especially self nukers of the highest level while being in AoO zone, thus either losing the spells or nuking their own party.

 

Unfortunately, someone on the developer team seems to ignore the real problem (AI) instead coming up with agro  mechanics for cRPGs. This is really a bad idea, as it really pigeonholes the char roles while forcing a degerate gameplay.

[Engagement Mechanics- Problems and Solutions]

 

In DnD 3.5e if you wanted to move away from enemy without suffering AoO but didn't have any special way (spells, feats, tumble or some magical ability) there were two options:

1. just move without doing anything. This worked against one enemy, but additional ones that surrounded you would still get their AoO. - this can be implemented in PoE by turning on a universal ability for all classes that lets you move away from one engagement but your recovery turns on for few seconds. You will be able to break engagement from one enemy but you will not be able to do much for the duration of the recovery. 

2. go into full defense mode and move out of area. This would cause everyone around to get AoO but their chance of actually hitting you would be reduced considerably (about 20%). - this can be implemented in PoE similar to #1 but it gives a noticeable Deflection boost while also putting your character into recovery for few seconds. You can more safely move from as many engagements as you want but you will also not be able to do much for the duration of recovery. This option would also reduce your move speed while recovery is in effect.

Soo what stops the enemy from just re-engaging you when you are recovering?

 

http://www.dandwiki....:Movement_Speed

 

If you use two move actions in a round (sometimes called a “double move” action),

 

Sounds like you would need to implement a completely new turn based system for this to work, not just a round system like IE games have.

I don't think there's much chance of that. Late in development and all that.

 

 

*sigh*

 

Just to clarify: I only posted that to show what a double move is.

 

The real point was the earlier one that "sticky" mechanics does not contribute to the game. I actually asked why is it there in the first place. I wonder if someone could explain that.

[Engagement Mechanics- Problems and Solutions]

Who cares what D&D says, or what happens in a turn-based game. This is a RTwP game.

Read post above dude.

[Engagement Mechanics- Problems and Solutions]

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Movement_Speed

 

If you use two move actions in a round (sometimes called a “double move” action),

[Why do fighters do it all night, while wizards can't?]

Then your view of what is tactical is very narrow. As far as I am concerned strategy is something that is long term management of resource. Tactics is more towards a battle. Feel free to consider this heresy.
 

 

To conclude that from what we've discussed is folly. I've only expressed a dislike for one very particularly small portion of combat preparation, amongst a sea of others. That, and I've criticized the method of preparation, rather than the very act of preparation, itself. Not to mention, it's a factor unique to casters. So, are you suggesting that a party without a caster is incapable of preparation?

 

 

 

How is it folly? Components need not always be mundane things. In fact that is terrible design. Also, no where I have mentioned that such a thing be limited to casters. But it is of course more sensible that it is so, simply because casters are doing something unusual. It makes sense that if the effects of the casters can turn the tide of battle they should be balanced by having a cost for that action being so powerful. Otherwise why would not spam the wail of banshee every per rest encounter?

[Engagement Mechanics- Problems and Solutions]

I have no clue why a lack of "sticky" mechanics is a bad thing. Any one care to explain? I would say that D&D like double move is a valid and non intrusive way of solving things. AoO's when you use items/potions in the mid of battle make more sense and thus encourage more attentive play.

[Combat XP - What Just Happened..?]

 

I disagree.

 

XP is hardly the single biggest incentive. Take for example Deus Ex. Let's say that getting Paul killed has a higher XP reward. Do you still feel that this option would be the most favored one?

XP is the single biggest incentive, out of the purely-mechanical incentives offered by the game.

 

That is so specific, that you objection is pointless. A game is not just a bundle fo mechanics.

[Why do fighters do it all night, while wizards can't?]

 

Its also called tactics. Being prepared is the key in PnP. And any good DM will first warn you and then punish you for not heeding that warning later. 

 

That would be fair game, if you know in advance that you are going to be beset by demons and do not prepare Circle against evil etc.

A) That's actually strategy, not tactics, and...

 

 

 

Wouldn't strategy in this scenario be more logically correspond to choosing the spells? i.e. at level up, that is waht sorcs and wizzies do.

 

 

B) It's fine for preparation to be significant, but that doesn't excuse the process of preparation being boring.

 

"Hang on, guys... We could really use some defensive bonuses in this upcoming fight, but I'm going to need to do some grocery shopping to be able to cast the spell I need to cast. So, TIME OUT FOR A SCAVENGER HUNT! 8D!"

 

Heading into a volcano filled with elemental beings and wanting to simply be prepared for lots of fire/magical entities shouldn't be an ordeal of a choice. That's a simple choice. Now, if it was actually just a tactical choice, that'd be different. If some of your spells used money, for example, as the material component, or pieces of armor... that'd be interesting. "Oh crap... do I give up this magical robe so that we can all have a fire shield right now? Or should we try to stick it out against these flames so that I get to retain the benefit of this robe?"

 

I have a feeling that you do not like to prepare for combat. Apparently you expect to win no matter what choices you made. Then PoE seems to be the right kind of game for you. Cheers!

[Combat XP - What Just Happened..?]

Well, the point is not if WoW is grind or not. The point is that IE games other than IWD2 were not grinding just because there was combat XP.  Any suggestion to the cotnrary is ridiculous.

Even IWD2 despite being a trash fest, did not strictly require you to kill everyone to level up. But even worse, it did not even give you anything useful for going through the horrid expereince of killing all those trash mobs, like the hook horrors or the goblins.