Skirge01

That is troubling to hear, but I appreciate the honest reply. Any chance of a workaround then? If I could use a keyboard combination to toggle or switch between 2 resolutions, that would be perfectly acceptable, as well. It's far too tedious to go into the menu options to select the resolutions each time this happens.

Has any progress been made on finding a solution for this issue? I'd just like to know if this is a "won't fix" bug or something which simply hasn't been assigned to a dev YET. Thanks.

Based on Aarik's reply, it surely doesn't sound like it's just "flipping a bit". If you think about the explanation he gave, it's pretty clear what the issue is. The way I'm picturing this is that these interior scenes are like holding a real photograph at the corners and attempting to shrink it down or stretch it out more. You can't because it's a set size. While it's easy to imagine that an image on a computer screen doesn't have such limitations, all of PoE's scenes actually do. For the scenes where we are able to zoom out, there is still a limit on just how far we can go because the scene was only created to that size. The issue is that these interior scenes are already at that outer limit. I have faith they'll come up with a solution, though. If any of the devs are looking for options, my suggestion would be to have the resolution switch down to native res on a single monitor when you enter an area like this. When you leave, have it automatically go back to the large resolution. At least on my system, switching resolutions happens very quickly and smoothly, so I would be fine with this. This is my current workaround, anyhow, but it's tedious to do this manually, so an automatic switch would be welcomed with open arms.

4ward: First, make sure to read through the rest of the tips in this thread because they're quite invaluable. Second, Josh Sawyere did a pretty thorough writeup on melee engagement here on these forums which included how AoOs work. I actually needed to search and figure out what AoO meant before I could answer your post. However, even without knowing that, I saw the disengagement attack penalties in-game and learned to never allow them to happen. I believe this may be accomplished by ensuring AI is off and also setting Auto-Attack to "Defend Self". (I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong on this.) But, that's how my party is set and I can't recall them ever disengaging by themselves. If one of my party members is engaged with multiple enemies in melee and one of those enemies chooses to disengage, my character usually winds up with an AoO, but stays attacking any remaining enemies he was already engaged with. From what I've seen they will never follow the disengaging enemy, unless it's the only one they were engaged with and were previously ordered to attack that one. As has been discussed in this thread, there actually are rounds and breaks between actions. You just need to pay attention to the information the game is providing, which is what I described in my previous post to munitqua. As was also mentioned countless times throughout this thread, use the auto-pause features and you'll be able to slow everything down so you can read exactly why the pause occurred and to see when certain things started or were completed. Without the auto-pause, everything happens so fast that you can't possibly learn how the game functions; you blink and it's over, having learned absolutely nothing from your failure. You sound about as frustrated as I was when I started this thread and the people around here were fantastic about providing me the necessary tips to surviving and thriving in PoE. If I could get there, so can you!

In addition to the tips on this thread, at least for me--being the micro-manager that I am (a trait, I believe, inherent to most TB players)--turning off the AI was also huge help. When I first started, I was focused almost exclusively on what I wanted my characters to do, rather than what they were actually doing. That might sound strange, but it's really not because they were doing my command and then continuing on their own with the AI, which confused the hell out of me. With AI turned off, your characters are entirely at your mercy, so they will only do what you tell them to. You quickly get used to giving them commands, having those orders carried out, and then giving them another command, which is precisely the gameplay style that TB players are wanting. What this turns into (again, with AI turned off) is that you become focused on which of your party members is not doing something. The game highlights this with your party members having little dots "..." above them. As the battle plays out, I'm constantly hitting tab to see who does or does not have something to do on their next turn. You'll also get used to watching those "turn bars" shrink until the character is able to carry out their upcoming order, assuming you gave them one: To put this into a battle scenario, let's say you tell your wizard to cast a spell on monster #1 and tell your fighter to attack monster #2. As they carry out those orders, you'll be watching the turn bar for the wizard to see when he's going to cast: ...and the turn bar for the fighter to see when he's going to attack. Now, with AI off, once the wizard is done with that spell, he will have nothing to do and will just stand there: ...unless you tell him to do something else. That's your trigger to issue him another command. In a sense, your queue is the turn bar. It's that level of micro-managing which gives you your queue. Simply put, you're telling them exactly what to do and watching them carry it out. You just need to know where to look and understand what the game is showing you. What I've found is that only my spellcasters require constant attention because I always need to be ready to have them cast the next spell, whereas my fighters are just told who to attack. I may change the fighters' weapons, but, otherwise, they just keep on attacking until I tell them to attack someone else. As others have said many times, get used to hitting the spacebar a lot. I haven't lost a battle since switching to this style of play, though I have come very close a couple of times. You will get the hang of it, but it takes a bit of time and effort to figure out how your desired playing style can be implemented within the confines of RTwP. I never thought that just 2 weeks after starting this thread that I'd already be offering tips to others having similar difficulties!

Turn based would ruin most of the combat mechanics. no more armor penalties, speed boosters, nothing like that would work with turn based. You'd have Fallout with action points or Baldurs Gate and all the imbalances that 'd come with it. I like a balanced dual wield that is faster but not double the attacks and double damage for a no brainer choice like BG had. While I also wish it was TB (and still prefer it), now that I'm getting used to RTwP, I'm enjoying the game the way the designers intended. I don't want this thread to get OT and turn into a TB vs RTwP battle, but I will say that I believe any TB game could probably be made as RTwP and vice versa. It's up to the designers to get it right and I trust the designers I buy my games from.

I've played quite a bit more since my last reply and I feel I've gotten the hang of a lot of this. Again, thanks to everyone who replied! I've even turned off a few auto-pause options, including some which really made no sense as to why anyone would want to pause after the occurrence. I've gone back to an earlier battle's saved game (which is the one that frustrated me and triggered this thread) with this new knowledge and still had significant difficulty. Perhaps my party simply wasn't ready for it yet. At least I can say I'm enjoying the RTwP now. An issue I'm still having is that, other than fighting or casting a spell, you don't know if your character is going to be able to accomplish what you want them to without being seriously hurt or killed. For that reason, I've found that scrolls and potions seem to be useless to everyone except your spellcasters, who you keep in the back, away from the melee. Is there really a way for a fighter engaged in a swordfight to use a scroll or down a potion without taking more damage than it's worth? Is there some tactic I'm missing here? Setting a trap (i.e. actual snare; not just an ambush) is similarly troublesome for me. How/where do you guys put those into use effectively?

Thanks for the reply. Hope you guys can come up with a solution to this because it's the most annoying thing I've found about the game so far. In the grand scheme of things, that's not so bad, but... well, you get the idea.

I'm about to try another PoE session with these new suggestions, so wish me luck! I'd be happy to provide some tips for TB combat, but it's really game-specific. I could certainly help out with Wasteland 2, but not Divinity or Torment (obviously, since it's not out yet).

Exactly right! I loved my 15-20 minute battles in Wasteland 2. Always ticked me off when I'd step just a little too close to someone and get spotted before I was able to set up my entire team. The scouting visuals in PoE make that mistake just about impossible, but--so far, at least--I've not really been able to position my party to anywhere near the level I was able in W2. Perhaps the new ideas brought up here will help with that, however. Yeah, it sounds like turning it off for now might be a good idea. But, you bring up a good point for some of the more mundane battles... just let them wipe them out real quick. Who knows, though? Once I get the hang of RTwP, I might find I like even the mundane battles. Here's to hoping!

Thanks for all the replies so far! I'm getting just the tiniest hint that I should be pausing more. I will definitely be turning on more of the autopause options, since I only had enemy sighted and weapon ineffective turned on. An especially huge thank you to Stepout for that Steam thread, which explained quite a bit I was either missing or misunderstood. I haven't watched the video yet, but will definitely be doing so before my next PoE session. While I'm getting used to this, should I completely turn off the AI for my party? I'm thinking that if it's on, they're going to do things I might not want them to and screw up whatever tactics I'm attempting to implement. If anyone has additional combat tactics I should keep in mind, please share.

I'm having trouble adjusting my play style from turn-based to RTwP. I feel like an idiot (hence the title) even asking for help, so I've done a bunch of searching, but have come up empty. I'm hoping the people around here who love this style of combat can provide some tips on how to approach a game like PoE. I've played this style of game before (BG & BG2), but never had much success with the combat aspect. To me, everything just happens WAY too fast and my party is dead in 30 seconds for some fights. I can coast through most fights by just letting the AI do its thing and hoping for the best. But, that's really not all that fun and those 30 second fights are extremely frustrating; to the point of getting seriously pissed off and wanting to quit the game entirely. So, would the experienced RTwP players care to provide some tips/guides for someone like me, in order for me to begin playing PoE the "right" way and actually enjoy the combat style you seem to love so much? If you've played both TB and RTwP and can explain how I need to approach this differently, that would be awesome!

I'm using a triple monitor setup at 6036x1200 (Eyefinity) and love it, EXCEPT when I enter a location which does not allow me to zoom out. Quite often, I'm zoomed in to max, which is quite jarring, and the game doesn't allow me to zoom out at all. Additionally, there are numerous locations where I can't even scroll the map in all directions, which means I can't see everything due to the monitor bezels and the location being stretched across 2-3 monitors. I've attached 2 screenshots to show this. The 2nd attachment shows exactly what I see upon entering the building in the map (1st) attachment. I can scroll up and down, but not left and right. Is this a bug? Known issue? My workaround is to change the resolution to a single monitor, do what I need to, leave the building, and then change the resolution back to all 3 monitors. This is quite tedious, though, and I'm considering just playing on a single monitor instead.

In all honestly, I wasn't expecting much when I clicked the link. I figured it was going to be a remix of existing music (which I also appreciate, BTW), or maybe some small snippet of original music. However, what you provided was absolutely fantastic. I'm assuming you composed all of this from scratch? Maybe it's because of my utter lack of any musical talent, but I think you've got one heck of a future in music. If you had/have longer pieces, I would seriously buy a CD from you. Have you ever considered iTunes or something? As far as what I like, I lean more towards upbeat music, such as the midway point of Noble Serenity. While I do like ambient music, as well, it's not something I'd listen to regularly; that's why I've always loved battle music in RPGs. It's something I would listen to while jogging, riding a bike, reading a book, in the car, or even at a BBQ.

For party artificial intelligence (keyword*), there has always been something which annoyed the living hell out of me: When someone uses a potion or spell which will covers a larger area, such as oil of fiery burning or Agannazar's Scorcher, can we please have the NPCs be smart enough to not walk into the area of impact. I don't expect the NPCs to suddenly scatter like rodents because I was stupid enough to throw the potion into the middle of the fight, right where Minsc was going berserk on some poor sod with his sword with Khalid by his side. However, it was unbelievably annoying when Imoen was firing bolts at someone while standing behind my mage who was casting spells and she then decides to walk directly into the flamethrower and just about kills herself, especially when there was another route she could've taken to get back in the fray. *Since you can't search for "AI" in the forum, finding this thread was somewhat difficult. Searching for "party ai" in just the subject didn't work too well, either. But, I managed to stumble on this thread anyhow.

I was considering posting something about this, but figured someone probably brought it up. I'm with what seems to be the majority here. I'm okay with major points being voiced, but I definitely don't want my character speaking. I also have no interest in the entire game being voiced. I do want the battle cries and other little comments. However, I absolutely loved the party banter in BG and even enjoyed the additional mods people made for characters. I'd even go so far as to say I'd be willing to purchase some DLC which adds (more?) party banter. For me, when the party starts having random, non repeating conversations, it seems to add to the mood and makes it feel more real.

Admittedly, I have not read through all 24 pages of this thread, but I get the idea and did read some from the first page and nearly this entire last page. My take is that this is a good idea, but it needs to be well thought out. I like the idea of minimizing the benefit of going on killing sprees. My suggestion would be to have the XP gain be miniscule for killing and let the reward be the loot. To avoid people double-dipping (which I had never thought/heard of before), your reputation should cover that. Unlike Fallout's single reputation, you could have an unknown-to-you and separate good and bad reputation ranking. This prevents people from "gaming" the system. If you become known to "good guys" as someone who finishes a quest and then goes back and kills everyone, word should get out and people should be less interested in trusting you in the first place, thereby limiting the quests you can be sent on, due to your own actions. The same would work for turning in the "bad guys" or killing them after completing their quest. Instead of being offered quests, they try to kill you on sight or put a bounty on your head and send people after you in droves. Since you don't know what your reputation is to each faction, you may wind up wondering why you aren't being offered any quests or no one is willing to talk to you. Conversely, you might be wondering why there's an army of bandits waiting for you every time you step outside a town.

To me, this is going too far. I don't want to be spoon fed the adventure. I don't want the game to hold my hand and explain what everything is, whether or not it's important, or where it should be used. I want to figure all of that out on my own. If I screw up, OH WELL! This is the reason I don't use walkthroughs or guides or cheats. We don't need to dumb the game down for the lazy. All I want is to avoid wondering whether or not a special gem, key, book, etc, has a further purpose. If it's just a normal book, then I want no indication that's it's simply a normal book. However, if someone tells me to bring them a "special" book, when I do so, I'd prefer that they actually take that book off my hands, so I'm not wondering if they might ask me for the book again at a later date. All I want to avoid is wondering if that semi-special item I just used for this one thing serves any further purpose.

You've apparently read WAY too much into my original idea. Nothing was mentioned about telling you whether or not something is important, nor about whether it's quest related, nor whether or not there's any value to it. The only part you got right was that I said once an item is no longer necessary, it would be nice if it just disappeared or dropped. If you want "in character" for that, then let's take the key example and say your character is smart enough to look at the key and the lock and notice that it was clearly made specifically for that lock and there's no possible way it could be used on another one. If you play a dumb character, you lose this ability.

Yup... I've seen that. I'm not THAT bad.

The fact that it takes up inventory space is definitely part of the problem. That would be solved by a separate tab to store them, but it still doesn't address the usefulness of the item. Think about the way "attribute" books worked in Fallout. After you read the book and your intelligence or skill was increased, the book simply vanished. Realistic? No. But, it let you know for certain that it was no longer needed. I'm pretty sure BG had this with some single-use items (i.e. rings, etc). Once you clicked on them, you received the intended benefit and they were gone. Simple. Effective.

One of the things that always bothered me about RPGs and inventory management is that I never knew for certain whether or not something might be useful again. For example, a key might open more than one door in a single location (castle, dungeon, etc). For this reason, I find that I become a packrat and just hang onto everything and when I run out of space, I HOPE that my decision to drop something on the ground doesn't come back to haunt me. In extreme cases, when I really was unsure, I've even found random chests or crates to hide things in and then hope I remembered which town that was. I'd love for items like this to simply disappear or drop to the ground (and be unable to be found again) once their intented use is completed.