Lephys

Also, is it not possible that they just don't have some stuff "in" yet, but will have it in before the final release? I can't imagine you'd have that many bugs to work out with a bunch of wandering townsfolk than you would with a single wandering townsperson. Seems like a different version of the paint-over passes on the environments. Doesn't really change the function, so it can be done whenever. And, admittedly, can be left out if it's just never gotten around to because of time constraints and the rest of thew workload. 8P

I'd imagine they're quite busy, yes.

Not at all. If you could point me to whatever made you believe that, I'll know better what not-to-say to mislead you to such a degree. That's not entirely true. Why would the foes have run off and done something else? They're not projectiles bouncing around the room. They're entities, with AI and targets and such. Your Warrior could feasibly just wait an extra second or two to kick/push a foe, while someone else could do the same. Especially if it's a foe that he's already fighting. Why would the enemy spontaneously switch targets just because you decided to not immediately act at the end of your recovery time? When the two of you were already fighting? And your Wizard, who's going to be casting Fireball... he's probably not man-handling 3 melee combatants right now, or you'd have a different plan for him than "try to hit those other guys with a fireball right now, and ignore those people murdering you to death at the moment." So, he can just wait a few seconds to cast his fireball, if need be. I realize that the situation isn't ALWAYS going to just allow you to easily do that. But... that's kind of the nature of tactical party-based combat, is it not? And what makes an intelligent move "intelligent." Given your circumstances, you produce an effective result, via party commands and planning. My whole point is horrendously simple, and you're unnecessarily complicating it: You should be able to use AoE spells effectively in situations other than "I specifically burnt multiple spells just to ensure the effectiveness of this AoE strike" and "the enemy just so happened to be already clustered, and they haven't spread out yet." Nowhere in there is the word "always" present, nor even the tiniest implication that somehow less effort should be involved in the process that results in an effective AoE spell usage. How is "just debuff/immobilize them so that the spell hits them, because passive math" demanding of more effort than "actually utilize all your peeps in a given situation to produce a set of circumstances suitable for an effective AoE usage"? I don't understand what's unclear about my thoughts on this matter.

I understand that, but I can't help that some things, when the specifics are largely ignored, seem to be such a demand. My qualms are basically with the extremity of the relative difference in effectiveness between not-using TWO spells to enhance an AoE spell, and just using the AoE spell. From that one caster, I mean. I'm not talking about other party members just standing around doing nothing. And I'm not saying that effort shouldn't be involved in order to make something like a Fireball not just hit 1 person for a huge waste of spell ammo. Also, for what it's worth, in the event that you statistically need to debuff/immobilize/otherwise-hinder foes with a spell before using your AoE spell just to get it into acceptable-levels of effectiveness, I'd say the situation's pretty dumbed down as it is. "Use fireball? Use Root first. Now Fireball hit all foes. Don't use Root? Fireball probably not hit many foes." So, it's easy for me to see how what I'm asking for is the complete opposite of dumbing down the system, in a way. Deciding to use a second spell to pretty-much-guarantee your AoE spell's effectiveness isn't really an in-the-fray adaptive tactical decision, as much as it's basically just a strategic cost. You just spent 2 spell "points" instead of one to achieve the desired effect. It's really that simple. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but, again, what I'm getting at is that, when that becomes largely your only option, it gets a little ridiculous. Well, that's... kind of what pause is for. Yeah, I'm aware of that. I'm not trying to say that PoE, specifically, provides you with absolutely no way to move enemies about. I just think it's a rather neglected area of combat capabilities, less-so in PoE, but still to some degree. I've been very busy lately, and haven't gotten to hop back into the beta to explore all the available abilities in detail and sort of "test" all the capabilities available to a party. That's why I'm more commenting on the way you usually see these games do it. That isn't to say that my point is "and therefore, PoE obviously doesn't do it right, because of what other games did, u_u..."

That bottom-right one is PRICELESS! LOLCANO!

Because there is more to productive discussion than either petitioning specifically to get a feature added or ignoring it and never ever talking about it at all. This topic was started in regard to the general idea behind real-time gameplay of this nature, and how that collective concept could be improved upon. I'm not about to go back and forth about "yeah but specifically, better animations and attack-flow should be slapped into the game right now!". However, they are still tweaking things, and anything even remotely related to such a thing could benefit from the evaluation of what helps support the real-time aspect of gameplay and what does not. Ideas are like seed clusters. Maybe there are 100 seeds, and not all of them will take root or produce anything. But maybe 1 will. That's why actual discussion, and not just binary back-and-forth argument about one thing being done or not-being done, is quite beneficial.

That'd be a great name for a Ranger bear companion. 'Cause... 'cause bears maul. 8P

I don't mind it boosting Fireball's effectiveness. That's not my issue. My issue is with your option list basically being reduced to spell pairings. "Want to cast fireball without immobilizing people first? That's only going to be effective like 10% of the time." It would really be great if the player had more control over enemy relocation. Either via melee engagement (aggressively push a foe back in a given direction as you fight them), or via active abilities (kicks, telekinetic throws, etc.). Two foes are already somewhat clustered? Get companion A to push enemy A towards those other two, and get companion B to push another foe towards those two, WHILE casting fireball at the already-clustered 2. Boom. You get to hit four of them. Through your own orchestration. There really are missed opportunities, I think, with relocation spells. Oftentimes, games give your party the ability to self-relocate (Blink, dash, etc.), but you can hardly ever move the enemies around in a controlled fashion. You either have to figure out how AI pathing works, and lead them all into a cluster, or catch them already-clustered when battle starts, hold them there, and hit them with AoEs and such before they spread out.

What if you could choose descriptors, kinda like backgrounds and such? Like "rugged," or "delicate," etc.? Then, you could have certain people react to those particular aesthetic traits. *shrug*. That'd be less strange, as long as you got to pick them.

I just still can't believe you get the power to call a lightning storm with your voice, but lack the power to direct it to not-strike you. What kind of magic is that? "Oh, I can make a fireball, but I can't really specify where it explodes, u_u..."

I must ask, are you a dad? Haha. I am not. But my father is the stereotypical jokester dad. I think I got the DNA from him, but I like to think I improve on his technique a bit.

*shrug*. I guess I just don't see an obvious difference between the potential for that and the potential for "Yes, I'll just hit them with a Fire- OH NO, EVERYONE SCATTERED BUT I'M STILL CASTING IT!". Either effectively "missing" with your spells, or just refraining from casting them in most situations until you're absolutely sure you can hit stuff with them. That's one of my biggest pet peeves in these types of games -- when pretty much the only prudent option for AOE targeting and such becomes "immobilize everyone first with some other spell, THEN shoot a fireball at them!"

I wouldn't say it was never an option. A less likely one, perhaps. And/or, it'd be less likely that they'd be able to do it as close to ideally as would be, well... ideal. But, as to why I'd write a "long" post about it? I'm pretty sure that's what discussion is for. Imagine how far humanity would have come in anything if all we did was sit around nixing options to even discuss, much less attempt. I don't want to live in the world where considering ideals alongside limitations is somehow frowned upon.

That's definitely a real date. I just dunno if it's accurate or not.

@Surface Reflection: That's actually not a bad idea. The only-for-Fighters engagement. Although, I'd say maybe just tie it to a Talent that Fighters happen to start with. That way, you CAN get it on other peeps, but you'd have to sacrifice something else to do so.

I'm still waiting on dual-casting in an RPG. And not that Skyrim or Fable carp, either. I think that's a way better use of your other hand than some silly lump of metal, u_u... *dusts off Wizard robes*

I do very much agree that the visual translation of real-time action greatly supports the pace of real-time combat. Even if it's purely aesthetic, but especially if it goes beyond that a little. As a basic example, I'll take a left swing, right swing, thrust "combo" animation and three, more frequent attacks with less damage per actual strike over 1 same attack every 3-times-as-long animation any day. Even if it's the exact same sequence of animations every time (not preferred, but acceptable.) In fact, I think real-time combat in these types of game, in general, could benefit from focusing much more on conditions of the fight, than on sequences of completely-standalone actions and choices in battle. Maybe that's why I like the idea of engagement so much, as well as why it doesn't fit as well as it could into the current state of the game. Maybe I'm crazy, but I excitedly imagine two melee characters clashing with sword and shield, trading blows, frequently parrying, interrupting each other, etc, gaining ground, losing footing, all that. Then, you've got an intuitive momentum to your combat. From a player standpoint, it allows you to lead combatants around the battlefield (unless they want to stop following and allow you to get away) or drive them back into walls (potentially -- you'd have to control the factors in such a way to achieve it, not just use your 'Push them back into the walls' ability), among other things. Clean hits would actually be decently rare on both sides, at first at least. Until you got someone to lose footing, or otherwise gained some sort of advantage. When the advantage belonged to your foe, you'd have to focus on turning that around, or at least taking their advantage away. *shrug*. I can understand why a project like PoE might not do such a huge amount of animation work, etc., just for such a system. But, ideally, it would be great to see that type of concept attempted for a real-time game.

^ What if you could "cast" spells without actually "releasing" them? You have your Wizard spend X seconds casting Fireball, but only when it's ready to throw do you actually throw it where you want. That could prove a useful design, regarding such things.

Which is far from a good thing, usually. I'm not certain, but I believe there's a setting for that. Because, as long as you don't begin the patching process, you can go on playing the game without ever patching it (or having to connect to the interwebs again) in Steam.

Yeah... *shrug*. I think Skyrim's a fun game, but not really a great RPG. A little too much of trying to "improve" a cake, and just ending up with a mountain of frosting. Which is still tasty, but it's no longer a cake.

The flying squirrel begs to differ, u_u... (I jest... I know they only glide).

^ Maybe the thread author believes it's... hardly worth it? 6_u

I'm pretty sure they haven't tuned the overall damage yet. Simply because most of the stuff they've changed recently has affected the damage, so they didn't want to do a tuning pass that worked at the time, then change some other things, then have to do another tuning pass, etc. So, there's some stuff (like damage) that I'm fairly certain they've known about for some time (as being problematic/not-finalized), but have been intentionally waiting to tweak in the proper order. Honestly, I'd say most combats should last about 30-seconds to a minute. Somewhere around in there. Maybe boss fights/tougher encounters would last upwards of 5 minutes, and a handful of easier encounters (especially if handled with extreme efficiency) might actually last less than 30 seconds. But, really, a fight should feel like something you can turn the tide of, in the middle of it. Not something you're trying to react to like a modern Resident Evil Quick-Time Event. Hmmm... I dunno. I mean, they could always do "the same thing" with just integer DR (formerly known as DT). Armor of Flame Resistance? +2 DT versus Fire. Heck, some armor could even have negative resistance rating for a specific damage type. 10 DR, but -3 DR versus Fire. etc. You could do that with piercing, crushing, etc. as well. I think that could work really well, if they got the numbers right. Which probably just requires a bit of iteration and some diligent measuring/evaluation. I like the idea of what old-DR was doing, but I really don't see the need to mix-and-match percentages and integers. It seems unnecessarily convoluted.

The impact of each individual talent should really be proportionate to the frequency with which we get talents. IF there are going to be some along the lines of "+3 DR", and others that are more "You get +1 spells per rest/encounter at every spell level, Mr. Wizard! 8D!", then I definitely think there should be two general categories of Talents: Major and Minor. Every level could gain you a point for a minor talent, and only the even levels would give you a point for Major talents. But, if we're just going to get 6 (out of such a huge pool), then they really need to all be pretty significant things. With that in mind, I really think mutual exclusion should factor in. Otherwise, it becomes really easy to say "Well, we can't have a talent that does A and a talent that does B, because what if you took both of them? Better tone those down," and end up with kind of an underwhelming arsenal of talents, even after 12 levels, simply because the game was balanced around "oh noes, what if you pick any 6 talents?!". If they're organized into groups of mutual exclusion (especially class talents, etc.), then you can have some REALLY spiffy talents, while remaining confident that they wont' be stacked with each other to produce demigod characters after just 3 talents. I think even 3 talents, though, for thew hole playthrough, wouldn't be "too few," so long as the "potency" (for lack of a better word) of those talents matched the infrequency of their acquisition.

^ So... what you're saying is, "tune the damage"?