Chilloutman

Only initial positioning. It puts all the emphasis of movement into strategical movement (planned movement) and movement in the combat opening. After the opening, combat becomes a stand still. Every video that showcases combat in Pillars of Eternity demonstrates this. It is banal/boring gameplay. Actually no, it doesn't make position frivial, it opens everything right up. The Engagement system removes many elements of tactical movement and positioning that the Infinity Engine games had. Even the simplest action such as shuffling a character to the side so you could fit another melee character in the pathfinding space is met with a disengagement attack, which is quite laughable. If you really need a video demonstrating all of the things the Engagement system removes or makes pointless, I'll make one. Sure you can, and I believe there are people who could create video where its demonstrated where it can be used tacticaly - you know where is will, there is way

And I will say it again, there is nothing tactical about free movement without consequences. If Enemy wizard cast firewall behinde your characters and you want to retreat (and take damage from that aoe firewall) will you call it not tactical? Because its completly same principle - danger zone you should avoid

I am quite sure it was overstatement, however dont you thing that most PA's are female? I wonder why its like that... Having worked as a secretary/executive assistant, my experience tells me that this is generally because most guys have better paying minimal education* options available to them. I'd have made more money (short term) as a laborer, a ditch or gravedigger, or similar than as a secretary; most women aren't interested in being a general laborer (but some are and can be as good as anyone else) or are focused on the benefits of a steady clerical job (which can be a very stable profession). This is aside from the stereotype that clerical work is better suited to women (at least post-1940 or so). *Obviously having an education widens your ability to get a job whether its clerical or laborer provided its an education that provides desirable skills (like carpentry or medical records) So you think it have nothing to do about boss preferences? Because I will confess without torture that if I have to look on someone whole day I prefer it to be nice looking girl than a man (on other hand I have few girls in my team in work and I must say I prefer to work with guys - its something about mentality. I can speak to guys more openly, where with ladies I always have to think about it twice so I dont offend them )

I am quite sure it was overstatement, however dont you thing that most PA's are female? I wonder why its like that...

New video update is up: spoiler alert - not for SJW

This has nothing to do with the presented arguments and why the engagement mechanic sucks so much. I dont see any argument axept those which are obviosly defects, not intended behaviour, care to elaborate one? Only one i seen was 'I cant run away freely, i got hit by enemy' well for me its good feature not bad. Any other? I could also ask why you backed this game and then are supporting something that trivializes combat positioning and functions completely differently from the IE games. Man you should find vocabulary to get meaning of word 'trivialize' because from your post it seems you have completely oposite expectation. Trivial is that you can move freely without consequences Tactical/Complicated means that there are difficulties you have to overcome What I dont like about game are for example atributes as 'power', or pink VFX on dirty fighting (probably connected to dirty dancing in this game xD)

Do you really expect programator drop his work and start doing 2D art? lmao No. He is asking for resources to be allocated so that things can be honestly salvaged at this point be salvaged. Of course, if the developers find free time for the combat improvement then it should be spent there. But not otherwise. I doubt that coders currently have any other work than combat. Transition system is in place, save/load is in place, invetory/equiping items is there, navmesh is there, engine is done by Unity, multiplayer is not in, quest system is in (but its more on scripters, not coders). Journal is in. Basicaly all features requiring larger amount of coding are already in.

This has nothing to do with the presented arguments and why the engagement mechanic sucks so much. I dont see any argument axept those which are obviosly defects, not intended behaviour, care to elaborate one? Only one i seen was 'I cant run away freely, i got hit by enemy' well for me its good feature not bad. Any other?

Do you really expect programator drop his work and start doing 2D art? lmao

Why on Earth do you people want to take 'features' from real time games. This is real time with pause. Heck in BG or IWD I spend more time in paused mode than in real time. To me it feels you have problems because you dont pause enough and then make mistakes in fast paced battle where its expected from you to control multiple characters with a lot of ablilities. If you are unnable to understand that your character is engaged and its not best idea to just turn your back on attacker and flee its problem with your expectation/gamestyle, not with mechanic. It is easy for me to disengaged if I really want, all you have to do is stun your opponent and you are free to go (granted, if you are engaged by 3 enemies than its your tactical fault and you have to deal with it) IE feel != realtime strategy or moba game) RTS - micromanagement of multiple units with very limited amount of abilities with macromanagement of base and resources Moba - controling single character with limited amout of abilities in fast paced multiplayer environment. Non of those have anything to do with pausable RPG (even if its real time with pause) Pause is your strategic instrument to not die horribly

Yeah right, I am used to pause in middle of battle in DotA to assign commands to all characters under my command. Seems like you probably playing only with bots xD. You dont come up with new solutions? you just copy other games? LOL but turn rate is actually not bad idea

Its stupid, but hey, if they want to loose money, they can still sell some 'My little pony' to fathers of families

I am out, I was ok when Sensuki show us how to expoit engagements - this really needs fixing, but once he start calling IE games having RTS feel. That we should pick ideas from CoD and DoTa... no sorry this is too much.

I am curios as well as it is quite discussed issue lately on forums and i didn't seen single response from team about that. Ultimately this is single player game and as we know this will probably not be only mechanic which can be abused. If player want to 'exploit' his gameplay its totaly his own doing - but please dont consider this statement that I dont want it solve - I want. I also believe that this mechanic is definetely under rework/tweaking phase, i dont believe they would ship it without animation for example

Sorry Sensuki but all those videos only highlight those things 1) disengagement attack need cooldown 2) disengagement attack should occure AFTER npc LEAVE engagement zone 3) disengagement attack need animation 4) disengagement attack should not interupt 5) add minimal amount of time spend in zone to attack occure 6) AI is stupid as hell But I generaly agree with your conclusions. Nice research

Since when am I promoting this? Look up my post history, you'll see me frequently requesting and advocating for better AI targeting and robust target re-acquisition. Melee Engagement removes the need for a lot of it, which is one of the (many) reasons why I want it removed. OK so finally we are getting somewhere where we can state precisely on what we are not agreeing. I think that melee engagement doesnt remove it, just add another tactical level to consider doing it instead of just doing it without consequences

The player generally has a party of 3-6 characters and the situation is A LOT more complicated than you think. You can't use isolated examples like that. Here are some of the questions I would be asking in that situation How many units does the player have How many units does the player have that are currently engaged is there pathing space available to get to the Wizard what afflictions is that unit affected by what is the current health of that unit that would attempt to target a low health character how many enemies is the player fighting how many are still alive will they all attempt to beeline to the back and attack the wizard With the engagement system it makes NO SENSE for enemies to change targets like that, because they could be killing themselves from disengagement attacks. The player can abuse the system. However with no engagement, it would make a bit more sense that an enemy a certain distance away from a low health character would re-acquire them as a target if there was available pathing space. Ih ear what you say, problem is that you see abuse only on engagement, I see abuse if you use your tank to attract enemies and they will never attack mage, Its another type of abuse. Same as if you have 1 fighter and 5 clerics who heal that one fighter constantly. If enemy never change their target its just another form of abuse. All systems can be abused if you know how

True, I simply hope they try make better AI that to throw away mechanics

Well I was able to do that AI in example above in 5 minutes, I expect OE devs to be more competent than me in that regard.

No you didn't or you would know that the issue is that there is no way for the current AI to check where you are positioned and whether or not he will attempt to close the distance based on that knowledge. So you agree with me that problem is AI. Hurray. Yes currently AI so stupid that it would run through 5 disengagement attacks just to attack first enemy it sees

I told you I seen it, I explain to you how my example solve that issue, yet you responded totaly out of context. please reply constructively or not at all.

Dont know what you mean, or if you even uderstand that math above but if you refering to Sensuki video about abusing engagement then this is perfect solution, as enemy would not pursue mage against 5 disingagement attacks even if mage have low hp and casting spell (still refering to math above, which was just quick shot out of my head, sure the values will probably have to be more tinkered)

Enemies rushing for the backline at the start of combat is not smart, nor challenging AI though. Any enemy that tries to run through Engagement will suffer damage from it and dealing damage to enemies is exactly what you want to do. That damage is FREE, it doesn't cost the player a single thing. If enemies rush through Engagement suffer a disengagement attack and I make my melee enemy hit them at the same time, that's one extra hit that I wouldn't have got if they had just attacked my Fighter instead - which is really stupid and makes it easier for the player to win. Enemies rushing for the backline at the start of combat is not smart, nor challenging AI though. Any enemy that tries to run through Engagement will suffer damage from it and dealing damage to enemies is exactly what you want to do. That damage is FREE, it doesn't cost the player a single thing. If enemies rush through Engagement suffer a disengagement attack and I make my melee enemy hit them at the same time, that's one extra hit that I wouldn't have got if they had just attacked my Fighter instead - which is really stupid and makes it easier for the player to win. Did I ever state they should do it without purpose? I clearly stated that there have to be AI (lets call it now simple decision table) and they should act accordingly, ofcourse enemy should not rush through engagement without thinking first if its worth it. Lets create simple AI Am I engaged? 1 Am I attacked? 3 Is nearby enemy I can finish quickly? (low endurance) 3 Is there spellcaster I can interupt? (enemy casting spell) 2 now lest say we have one NPC enemy engaged by one fighter with wizard(with low heath) behinde him casting spell NPC is engaged and attacked by fighter 1+3 = 4 NPC sees low health mage casting spell 2+3 = 5 NPC try disengage and attack mage Now same scenario but add another fighter NPC is engaged and attacked by 2 figters 4+4 = 8 NPC sees low heath mage casting spell 2+3 = 5 NPC will stay and attack current target Now you have somehow capable AI which can do reasonable decisions - its simple as that and there is absolutely no problem with engagement mechanic itself I am engaged

Again, i see contradictions in your statements The dumb AI is there for people who support the engagement mechanic because controlling the enemy was too hard for them in IE games. What are you talking about? Enemies in IE games were completly dumb and attack first target they saw/atacked them, its quite similiar to what PoE have now So it would make it play no different than it currently does. If they actually make it so that the enemy could knock down your tank and disengage to each go after their own target you would be royally screwed with the current abilities in the game, because the tank would no longer be able to pick them up before someone would get killed. Uhm so we want tactical combat - but easy because I dont want my character killed? WTF?

This is what we talked about in PMs Sensuki. Good AI should make decisions if its worth getting diengagements attack to run to your mage. Even smarter AI will for example try first get e.g. knockdown before disengage. Smart AI will not run to backline if it means multiple disengagement attacks. Smart AI will try to avoid AoE damage zones. You are calling for more tactical combat and at same time promoting the most simplest dumb AI which attacks first target on sight - I dont get it