Kjaamor

Sounds good. I had feared that the situation might be exacerbated by the beta. My only concern with the exp levels based on when party members are acquired is that there appears to be potential for characters to begin to level in an asynchronous manner, but as the exp rewards increase, those level-ups at the end become increasingly synchronised.

I brought this up long before the beta, but I thought in light of where we are that it might be worth bringing up again. My motivation last time around, as is my primary motivation this time around, was encouraging the asynchronous leveling up of party members. This was something that BG and IWD did, and NWN2 and many other RPGs did not. To my mind asynchronous levelling (i.e. that different classes/races level up at different times rather than simultaneously) provides three huge benefits, and in PoE's case, one smaller but not insignificant one. 1. It helps to spread out the reward of levelling, more often giving the player a reward and encouraging the "just fifteen more minutes" feeling that BG and IWD were so good at. 2. It easily enables different classes to shine at different points; giving a power burst to the class who has just levelled without maintaining a constant power imbalance. 3. It provides encouragement to utilise the new-found abilities of each leveled class, because potentially 6 abilities are not given to you at once to discover their merits and incorporate them into your playstyle. And for PoE... 4. In a class system that is imbalanced (particularly over time), it provides opportunity to address the balance in an easier to implement manner than remodifying the abilities and traits of all the classes within. The last factor being particularly true as we cruise towards the end of PoE's development. Asynchronous leveling is something I'm fairly passionate about (rather moreso than engagement) as I truly thing it adds something to RPGs, although I am aware that many people dislike it on the grounds that all classes should either be equal or deliberately unequal. I also know that it came from an effort to rebalance D&D rather than design a mechanic, but I do not believe that undermines the benefits it brings. Since the beta forum is almost exclusively backer-based and people here have had chance to see the game in action and consider steps moving towards the end of development, I wondered what the feelings on this were. As a final note, I know that leveling in the beta is not wholly synchronous, but I am trying to encourage a more deliberate asynchronous-ness a la BG/IWD.

If you go back to the IE games (as I have been doing recently), the overwhelming difference in the combat between them and PoE is that in the IE games characters miss most of the time. As THAC0 rises so too does AC and unless you've hopelessly mismanaged you and the enemy will either be missing most of the time or fights are very short because the other party lacks the hp. Since misses don't naturally show up in the default IE combat log, it is a lot clearer. In PoE, with its graze system and comparatively bloated hp, "hits" (i.e. Hits, Crits, Grazes) are all occuring multiple times each second. That makes the combat log the cluster**** that it is. Since we are too far into the graze system to withdraw at this point, the easiest solution would appear to be to hide grazes by default in the log, and when status effects graze simply show the status effect (Bob is knocked down for 2.4 seconds) rather than the who and how, unless you mouse over it. Display ideas are good, but they're a very minor part of it compared to the sheer volume of information coming through.

The combat log is an excellent place for the promised "everything can be turned on or off". And it would look a damn site clearer if "misses" and "grazes" could be turned off, and if afflictions were shown separately from their attacks (i.e. "Bob was knocked down for four seconds" rather than explaining who hit him, whether it was a crit/hit/graze, etc). I know some grazes can be pretty potent, but half the reason the IE combat log is so clear is because when something shows up it is a reasonably rare occasion - at least after the five mages have completed their pre-buffs. The combat log should be customisable to show as much information as possible to the player, but I don't think that the current wealth of information sits well as a default setting.

If it's any consolation, as soon as you start combat with a Ranger you'll be reaching for the main menu anyway.

I've seen the short video you reference, and while it doesn't turn the game into a 4x game, there are obvious differences, one of which is that you can now retreat characters from the front lines without penalties and, when the AI is sorted out, the enemy will be able to do the same (indeed the only reason it looks remotely similar is because the current targeting clauses are practically non-existent). The crux of Sensuki's original argument was that AoO cannot be dragged from turn-based straight into RTwP and that prohibiting combat movement by anything other than active ability CCs reduces tactical play and is contrary to the "spirit" of the IE games. The idea that getting it to work will require way too much work and resources has been very much an afterthought by the engagement crowd and is certainly nothing like the crux of the argument. I don't think there is much in this, or any of the other engagement threads, for a dev to reply to. We're not asking questions so much as making sweeping demands, and a dev presence here would only like serve to antagonise things. If they do drop it, expect an update in the usual place and expect them to distance themselves from the community. If they don't drop it, expect to hear about the improvements to engagement that have been made for the next patch update.

It blatantly doesn't or else you wouldn't be campaigning for it's removal. This was the OFFICIAL Kjaamor post of the 3rd page. Accept no substitutes.

In a word, "Brevity".

Obviously Melee engagement in its current form is flawed. Obviously the AI in PoE needs as much work as it can get. My problem is that you advocate the removal of the system in its entirety. I've been playing IWD:HoW today, and I think you view that game with very rose-tinted glasses and also misunderstand people's issues with the system you are advocating. You have done several videos, including the one above, where you state that a lot of people dislike the aggro mechanics because they do not understand how to switch aggro from their characters. There's no reason why that can't be the case, but there are plenty of us who quite easily figured out how not only how to switch aggro, but to maintain it in such a way that enemy mobs can be drawn through ranged traps they would in reality never fall for. Part of the reason for this selective memory is because in the overwhelming majority of cases, the environment reduces the scope for these tactics. Running a snaking fighter is harder in an enclosed space. This shall be true of engagement. I appreciate that the Medreth example is the easiest to repeat because of the immediate access and desirable because it is an enemy party, but it allows for both strategic positioning and tactical maneuvering (its also incredibly easy, which does play a part). The same immediately rings true of the Saverok battle at the end of BG, which could be (and frequently was) won without the big man ever getting a hit on you. Edit: To be honest, one of the simple steps to removing kiting is to never, ever, give a player the chance to outrun mobs. No wild sprint, no monk speed, no haste affects movement speed. Let wolves run quicker than players, sure, but never players quicker than Orcs. Of course that would be a lead balloon with many players because of reasons. To be honest, I'm surprised that they got rid of the "can't charge actions whilst moving" feature, which was every bit as important to addressing kiting as engagement. Design by committee, I fear.

...but you did use a fighter, right? I haven't utilised a custom party, so I can't say with certainty how it would be, but it appears evident that only having Paladins and Barbarians in your front line would be a far slower and distinctly more frustrating experience.

My issue with fighters was never that they weren't capable of being a dps class, but rather that a Paladin and a Barbarian can't tank as well as a single fighter. Obviously it was in the sales pitch that fighters would be best at it, but the impression I was given was that the secondary melee classes would make for functional but sub-optimal tanks. At last check, the off-tank you could make from a Paladin or Barbarian wasn't much better than the tank you could make from a wizard without using spells.

Huh? In a "rolls" based system people could just reload until they win. In the case of hard checks you have to wait until you reach a certain number to be successful. Now those lacking impulse control will be "forced" to backtrack the entire game to get the xp that they cant live without. Oh the humanity! If a chest has a difficulty of 14 against Mechanics+d10, then if you reach that chest with Mechanics 3 you will not be able to open it. Only when you have a Mechanics >3 will you be able to. Hence you backtrack anyway. That is unless no chest has a difficulty greater than 11, in which case every point past 1 in Mechanics is unnecessary. You don't eliminate the need to backtrack with checks, but you do remove the save+reload spam for something that requires no skill/strategic/tactical input from the player. That is a good thing.

Which would've been the case anyway, unless no improvements to mechanics are ever necessary.

Well, in that case the save-reload discussion seems fairly moot. Also, good.

Personally, as a gamer who can't control his reloading for minimal exp, I would encourage a "Lead-Man Mode", which allows you to reload as much as you want, but all the traps and locks are given a fixed seed at the start of the game. Having just said that, with all the worrying about movement and class, I've been ignoring skills for some time. Are they rolls or checks?

Good, because that was ridiculous and more than a little unthematic. While on the tangent: Rangers: Change the "my animal dies, I die" mechanic to turn them into an at least somewhat ranged class. Ciphers: They should merge the classes of Ciphers and Wizards into a new class, based around some manner of regenerating spell points and reuseable spells, and call it the "Wizard". ...but sadly that isn't going to happen.

It's true, but again the issue comes down to whether or not PoE is the place to try and improve things. The current engagement system, combined with the current AI, might not play better than the IE games. The question is to whether Obsidian should be attempting to improve such mechanics to make them better than the IE games, and I believe that they should. The secondary issue, which Bester raised, is that while the traditionally glass cannon classes act as glass pea-shooters this might not necessarily be the case. I would argue that bow-wielding naked Ciphers and naked sneak-attacking rouges with an arbalest or arquebus have effectively replaced the wizard in this area. If Obsidian take steps to nerf those two builds, which arguably they should, then they could probably afford to lose engagement and just have bad AI.

FFS. I lol'd.

It depends upon how the targeting clauses work in the finished version. If those particular goblins' top targeting clause was to attack spellcasters, as a clear and obvious example, they would run past the Fighter to the Wizard. More practically, targeting clauses are likely to be based around the traditional manner of damage received from, although on this matter I would acknowledge part of Bester's post: ...which I agree is becoming a bit of a design problem, and Josh may have to accept that. It is incredibly simple, to the point of being simplistic, and is easily exploitable and creates combat incongruous to the theme. Not everyone liked every aspect of the IE games, and not everyone thinks that copying them verbatim is a good design policy for PoE and Obsidian more generally.

One line from the OP I'd like to add some clarity on: I don't think that this is true. For all the sides have become so polarised, engagement is more of a "hate it or want to see it improved" affair. For myself, I certainly don't love engagement, although I think the goals of the system are noble enough. If a different system can be created within the available time frame that better accomplishes those goals, I would happily take that. Frankly, engagement itself has got a lot of undue attention from the wider issues of the UI being a complete cluster****, and a tanking Fighter being absolutely mandatory at this point. For what it's worth, I like this as an idea. I don't think that it's enough on its own, but I think that this is a good starting base. Positives: - It is simple. The current problem with engagement (and hell, with PoE more generally) is that it is obtuse, unintuitive, and creates even more dread UI clutter. - It encourages movement and reactionary tactics, by not making tank disengagement so punishing. - It creates tanking classes and non-tanking classes in a manner that to me fits in with the general design brief of the walls of melee. - It encourages one build of "tank" (the multi-mob dealer) without necessitating it. Negatives: - Alone, it does nothing to prevent kiting, which like it or not was one of the key design goals behind having an engagement mechanic. - It may not currently fit into the AI build of PoE. That is to say, if the group of ten goblins decide to storm past your fighter and towards your wizard, there is nothing in the mechanic that gives the fighter any power to do anything about it. That said, giving front line classes (NOT just the fighter) a few modal sticky abilities could easily offset this.

It is fair to say that the Engagement topic was where the hostility commenced, but the actual issue behind it always seems to revolve around the question of whether PoE should innovate or not.

I concede that in this thread our interactions have run decidedly off-topic, so this shall be my last post for the day in here, but I would like to politely point out that you respond to almost every topic in this sub-forum which makes it rather difficult not to 'follow you around'. If my posts are frequently replies to yours it is because you consistently engage back, and me disagreeing with you does not constitute a snide remark. Obviously that last one is the exception, but since it is a reply to your own snide remark, I think I'll cut it some slack. ...not that the mods necessarily should, so, as I say, I'll leave it there for the day.

Whereas if there'd have been people like you getting your way in the mid-nineties, the IE games would never have happened! Oh, snap! EDIT: (You accuse me of making snide comments from the 8th of November, I haven't, and for what it is worth I still like your points when you're saying something sensible. For the avoidance of doubt, the one above is a snide comment, in response to your own snide comment. Oh, snap!)

Disagreements to things said on-topic are by their nature going to be somewhat antagonistic when lifted out of context and put elsewhere. I'm fairly confident I can rule out having ever called you a "prick" however.