Kjaamor

Equally, I'm perfectly happy for some FTL-style slavery in this regard, just for the love of god put it somewhere that isn't completely obscured the second an AoE is cast.

Even when I'm trying to photoshop well, I can't match Karkarov, Hormalark (?sp?) or Sensuki, but to hop on board and be creative rather than purely critical, here is my brief summary of ideas. It's bad enough with the forum view, so if you decide to expand this I shall not be held responsible if you immediately contract retinal cancer. Obviously it's fugly as you like, but here's what I'm trying to inspire in other creative sorts. The overall idea is for a glance at the screen to provide as much key information as possible, and for the things used either less frequently or in isolation to be out of the way. 1. All characters, including the selected character, are stacked on the left of the screen. The horrid MSpaint circles represent the current action of the character (I couldn't be arsed to paste the icons in, but that's what would be present) A represents an action occurring at that precise moment, be that a skill, an auto-attack or movement. Practically, A isn't used much in PoE. B represents an action (skill, auto or move) that has started but has not yet completed. To represent completion, the circle fills with blue in the manner of a clockface. When the whole square is blue, the action completes. C represents the recovery time. The icon below (where C is placeholder) will be of the NEXT action, although the yellow filling clockface is the recovery time of the previous action. The overall idea is that the first thing you look at on any screen (in the west) is the left hand side and the first thing you will see with this setup is what all your characters are doing, in a clear manner. The currently selected character has their portrait enlarged. I'll follow Sensuki in keeping status effects upon the portrait, although that joins the long list of things I couldn't be bothered to photoshop. 2. The combat log is to the left. After what each character is doing, this is the next most important thing, and as such comes in the next visual priority space; the bottom left. 3. The currently selected character portrait is central, followed by their potential actions. I wondered for a while if this would work okay, but I feel that these areas are examined less frequently that the others, and can be examined in greater isolation. 4. Things used even less frequently are stuffed in the bottom right. 5. Things used least frequently or taking the player out of the game are stuffed, alone, in the top right. 6. The pause/slow button sits in the bottom corner to anchor the surrounding elements, or for ease of use forpeoplewhodon'ttrustthatlongblankkeyatthebottomoftheirkeyboard. Would you take anything, what would you ditch, and is five in the morning the best time to open up image manipulation software?

It was implied that a level of strategy is required in combat, and by extension there is a certain level of difficulty. The game was not set up to be "hard" on all settings, but it was designed to require strategic/tactical input. Even on easy, the player has to do more than simply bring their party to the table to win. Personally, as someone who doesn't consider themselves particularly hardcore in any respect (Played the IE games on "normal", rarely play anything on "hard") I find it slightly bemusing why so many players are struggling to survive the beta. I suspect it is because, like yourself, Ieo, in the IE games I pause constantly and it has got me into habits that are effective in PoE. It blows my mind that so many people were able to survive either BG without being so reliant on pausing, but there you go. Difficulty feedback is important, of course, and "Easy" should be easy. However, like BG (a game I regard as far harder, personally), "Easy" should only be easy when you are playing the game roughly in the manner that it is intended. I don't know what the OP is doing but after a short watch of, for example, any of Sensuki's videos if they cannot then progress with relative speed then perhaps we can talk about toning down the difficulty on "Easy". If, given a very quick introduction into how to approach the game, they then find it easy, as I suspect they shall, then the difficulty requires less tinkering. In other news, I echo the sentiment that the concept of "fun" is different but related.

I would politely point out that a certain degree of difficulty was one of the premises for the kickstarter, and that the IE games themselves were not casual in their difficulty and required a degree of strategy and tactics. I remember playing BG as a kid and getting my ass repeatedly handed to me on "Easy" mode. It doesn't happen now, of course, but then there are very few true RPGs where 20/20 foresight in the form of hindsight doesn't make things considerably easier. That said, the combat is generally unenjoyable and less intuitive than the IE games at present. The reasons for this are many, there are many different ideas for solutions on this board, and we almost inevitably disagree on them.

Getting butthurt over the inclusion or lack of inclusion of kiting gameplay. Imagine that.

Your fighter being dead in the next few seconds is what you can expect if you disengage from 3+ enemies. That's right, that's what I said. Good to see that quotes can be used to show recognition rather than just counter-arguments. Of course you're not entirely dependent upon your armor and healing, you have your multitude of abilities AND the disengagement mechanic. What you lose is the ability to kite (and, in IWD terms, counter-kite). You do not need an absolute party. A combination of Monks, Paladins and Barbarians bred for purpose will tank in lieu of the fighter. A Chanter will heal in place of a priest (no word on Druids yet). And just about any combination of classes can fulfill the role of your ranged damage dealer. Of course, as you say, a Fighter+Priest+Ranger (actually my practical experience says not the Ranger, but I'll hop on board for sake of the point) combination will be optimal and all other builds sub-optimal. That's how party-based RPGs have run for decades and that's fine. If I choose to run with a Paladin as my lead tank, you better believe I know that he is going to be less optimised for the task than a similarly-built Fighter would be. 1. Good initial tactical positioning of the tank matters, because they will be the centre point around which the rest of the battle occurs. From there, you tactically position other characters as necessary, setting up choke points and positioning as necessary. 2. CC in this game appears to be absolutely in its infancy, but CC has to be worth something without kiting. 3. No correlation.

o_O Mechanics that account for the way AI or human players target have been the staple of RTSs since their creation! Citation needed? Also, the game does not have to be unbreakable, just as the IE games weren't. Solo Monk BG2 depended upon breaking the mechanics. All you have to do is make it so that "breaking" the game is more tedious and unrewarding than "playing" it, and there is nothing so far which suggests that this goal cannot be achieved. ...but then when the clauses are even remotely sorted out, does the mob still follow the initial aggro when engaged or transfer to the new, engaged aggro? And if you have multiple fighters set up to disengage-slay this mob, will its comrades make mince-meat out of your back line? It all depends upon the nature of the clauses, which are currently barely implemented at all. ...and also, it was an example of how to fix the broken mechanic off the top of my head in two seconds. It was meant to serve as an example of how quickly solutions for these things can be come up with, not a final mechanic suggestion. Such mechanics are not necessarily a two way street, and I don't believe that there needs to be a level playing field between humans and AI. The AI, after all, we can reasonably expect to play the game as intended and not use game-breaking exploits. At least after beta. Kiting is a gameplay mechanic that many RTSs and similar games thrive upon, but it does not lend itself particularly well to the idea of epic melee combat and it is perfectly acceptable to try and drive Kiting (as opposed to moving) from a RTwPRPG. I don't often buddy up to the immurshun crowd, but one thing I hated about the first BG was the way that to win combat my Hard-as-nails tank had to run around the battlefield screaming in panic whilst a conga-line of enemies behind him fell to his mates in the bushes with bows. It didn't seem very realistic. It certainly wasn't particularly tactical. It had minimal strategy. And the very last thing it was was heroic. And I do not believe that this mechanic has to survive into the next generation of RTwPRPGs.

The original BG was particularly terrible because it outright depended upon you abusing the "Mob melee attacks the closest party member" mechanic, and as you yourself were discussing on these very forums not so long ago, IWD has the similarly awful mechanic of enemies trying to walk past your front line to get to your back, but enabling you to block off their pathfinding with your front-liner. Nothing of what you say is evidence that the engagement mechanic will not work as intended. First you position the fighter to maximise the number of enemies he can engage so they do not reach the front line. If you fail to position correctly, then you should be taking disengagement attacks. If you wish to reposition when you already have 3+ enemies engaged, then you can expect to take a battering for repositioning. Of course, the tactics underpinning this is the question of how strong do you need your front-line to be? Will you try with one tank? A tank and an off-tank? A tank and two off-tanks? This was one of the things that the old "What Party Will You Make" threads were born of; the question of how strong or weak you wanted your two lines to be. At no stage in development was it said that one fighter can always hold the entire enemy front-line, and nor should it be this way. The front-line is a line, not a single person. This is what was promised. Of course, they haven't quite delivered as of yet, because the engagement mechanic and clauses need a lot of work. But that is not an argument against it working on a conceptual level, and your point only serves to show its potential. That is broken indeed. Two second consideration fix: 1. Defender mode greatly limits speed. 2. Speed penalty remains five seconds after toggled off. Give the team a minute, and I'm sure they can do rather better than that.

Perhaps they're a tribute to the abysmal targeting clauses of the IE games? Memories of my fighter playing Benny Hill with an Ogre while five ranged characters killed it in BG. But yes, of course that stuff needs sorting. On a conceptual level, I approve of the engagement mechanic because I think that when it is working it will serve the concepts of front and back line well. However without appropriate clauses and containing the bugs it does at present, it is difficult to judge how effective it will eventually be. ...but once those bugs and clauses are sorted, it offers a better combat experience than the chase/block cheese of an awful lot of the IE game battles. Said as a Grognard, etc.

These are the two best suggestions to come from this thread, in my opinion. Combat would be a good deal less of a cluster**** if it was clear what each character was doing and how long into it they were. To an extent, the fact that this is would be better visible on or around the portraits does not exactly heap praise upon the chosen combination of game graphics and gameplay.

The only bonus I see from this is that it puts the combat log on the left, unless you're counting the dubious bonus of being able to play in higher resolutions - although as you say that is an NGUI issue anyway. In terms of priorities for change (for it is that rather than "to fix") I find the suggestions in this particular thread to be pretty near the bottom at best.

Disagree with the implication that non-utilised space is "wasted". Agree that the log would be far better if situated on the left, particularly given the need to refer to it so bloody often.

I think that's hyperbolic. The combat-based IE games left you paused a good portion of the time. If there is more pausing in this game, however, it is a consequence of having the combat abilities spread over all classes rather than just the spellcasters. I would hardly describe that as being as problematic as Sensuki implied, however.

o_O ...it's a RTwP game.

In my experience, it's a case of who is most dangerous to your party on a practical level. As the monk is placed to immediately be tanked by a fighter with both high health and sky-high deflection, his danger is mitigated, while lonesome Medreth has an easier target which he can probably unleash hell upon. In the event that the PC is also a tanky fighter, and BB Fighter is serving as off-tank on Medreth, then perhaps the monk could be first to go.

While - or rather as - deep wounds remains overpowered, since Medreth tends to lead with Knockdown in my experience it is preferable to take him out before he gets a chance to use it.

Perhaps the dice just fell massively in my favour, but in my one attempt at that battle so far I beat them all comprehensively. Fighter took some damage (maybe 1/10 of health) but the rest were unscathed. I have only played on "hard" (not PotD) since the original build. Looking at Sensuki's attempts above, the first major difference he goes for is in his starting positions, and subsequently party division. The tactics that have worked for me across all the builds, including my v333 go: Tank (invariably BB fighter, shield and defender active): Put him directly in the centre of the cluster of mobs. As soon as combat starts, activate his once-per-encounter defensive ability. Things will never be harder for him than at the start. His job is to tank that group of mobs. Because of the movement issues, he can attack whichever of them he choses. Off-Tank (ideally a created Barbarian/Paladin, but in a push BB Priest or BB Wizard (if you treat him with the contempt I do) can perform this role): This guy will stand directly next to Medreth and engage conversation when people are in position. His job is to tank Medreth, and if he starts closer to Medreth than anyone else, he should do this easily. Rogues: Start close to Medreth, but not as close as off-tank. Immediately use crippling strike on Medreth using a two-handed weapon as their opening action. Priest: Start close to Medreth, but not as close as off-tank. Immediately use a HoT/buff in the centre of battle, then move to attack Medreth. Wizard: Stand well off to the side, and hurl blasts towards the group surrounding the tank. I don't bother to use spells. Plan: While BB Fighter tanks the group and the wizard makes the best use of his blasts, the rest of the party batters Medreth. Medreth is invariably the first to fall. When he does, pause, and see which of the enemy mobs is on lowest health (apart from the boar). Focus fire on that guy. When he falls, repeat previous two steps until they are all dead.

I'm old enough to know better, but I've spent long enough gaming to not.

The current patch has made the difficulty laughably easy, I agree, and that needs work and will get it, but to imply that the maps themselves are the problem is patently false and to suggest that BG's maps and encounters were somehow wonderful is laughable because almost all of their encounters fit either into the "So easy it requires no thought" or "So difficult that implied party approaches don't work and you're encouraged to either summon spam or off-screen glitch them".

*Don Rose-Tinted Glasses* *Examine Baldur's Gate* *Remove Rose-Tinted Glasses and don Grey-Tinted Glasses* *Examine Pillars of Eternity* *Ask for much more from Pillars of Eternity*

Personally, I'd like them to focus upon ironing out the bugs and incomplete/unimplemented mechanics that they wanted in the game. I feel that there is already a superb RPG in PoE that just needs ironing out in terms of what it is, rather than wholescale upheaval. I respect people (Sensuki) for posting all these suggestions and I agree with many of them individually, but I think that chasing such individually good suggestions runs the risk of both design by committee and (consequently?) playing whack-a-mole with the existing bugs and broken mechanics. For example, I'm more than happy with the majority of the class (im)balance at present, the only exception being the Ciphers because charm skills as they currently work mean that the party does not have to fight. Even insta-gib Rogue and insta-wipe Ranger don't bother me because at the end of the day PoE will be a companion experience first-hand and if people want to run 1xFighter 5xRogue on their experimental playthroughs that's fine. -Performance -General Saving/Loading/Sight/Pathfinding Bugs -Unimplemented pre-planned mechanics -Nerfing the Cipher's Charm skills

Christ, man, just bail on the forums completely and go and see how the next DA is coming along. Or the new Hobbit film, it will have similar gameplay.

It is fascinating how many gold backers seem at odds with infinity engine concepts. I'm increasingly left feeling that maybe they should have a greater definition on the project and maybe I should go back to playing rpgs in Excel.

The biggest issue for me with the levelling up system is that within the beta most of the class level ups feel utterly interchangeable. My priest and fighter level up at the same time, and yet it feels like the best option is just to select weapon focus for both. But I always felt that was an issue with the crpg 3.5 system, to be honest, so maybe that's true to IWD2. In other news, I would have gladly liked to see differing exp systems, a la BG, rather than the fixed levelling of NWN2, which I think adds to the disappointment of levelling up. I'm not suggesting that's a majority opinion, mind.

There's been some brief tangential discussion in the thread myah about dropped items, and the impact they have on slowdown. It got me thinking about something I ended up doing in many of the IE games (and indeed many other RPGs) where after trash fights I would spent a few minutes picking up and at the very least tidying up the mundane items that were left on the floor. I never intended to roleplay an OCD hero, but the impact on both the slowdown and the general aesthetic used to get on my nerves somewhat. It might be a bit late in the day for this suggestion, but one solution that seemed fairly elegant for me would be for items to have a "Decomposable" tag. That is to say that certain items, when dropped, have a limited lifespan whilst on the ground while others don't. From a gameplay perspective, this means that dropped arrows, leather armour or beetle shells don't end up hogging unnecessary memory, and that players aren't encouraged to play clean-up after trash fights. At the same time, it prevents the loss of quest items or significant items from being lost. From mahimmurshun perspective, decomposable doesn't literally mean the item rots away, but is instead thought to have found its way into the hands of the general populace, or scavenged by creatures, or whatever. Significant items stay because like the one ring, they have a certain choice as to who finds them (or whatever such drivel you prefer to avoid having to reload because you didn't spot that ring of wizardry first time around). A hypothetical example of this in the IE games, would be if in the original Baldur's Gate, longswords and longswords+1 had a decomposable time of 24 in-game hours, whilst Longsword+2 effectively stays on the ground forever. Opinions?