constantine

Unfortunately Crafting and Stronghold cannot be tested in the BB and any fixes/changes on them will happen after release. Of course, there's internal testing, but we all know is not enough given the window of time PoE had.

Great thread I'd like to see feedback from. My thing is, I haven't understood the difference between Hard setting - Path of the Damned. I know that Easy-Normal-Hard does not make enemies tougher or changes their tactics, but instead adds more of them in an encounter (or a mage where there were only fighters) So what does Path of the Damn exactly ? It overrides other difficulty settings ? Or can someone play on Normal with PotD On per say ?

The fact is that when PoE is released, some will play the vanilla game and some 'Sensuki's No-Engagement Mod'. What's the point for any more conflict ? Engagement is making it in the game and there are those who want it and those who don't- each of them having the opportunity to get what they want.

@Lillycake, Your idea for 'Adjustable Game Speed' is awesome ! I hope we get to see it in-game. Overall, great post.

@Sensuki, During my BGI&II, IWD playthroughs combat ended fast also. It was a matter of 2-4 rounds, with me micro-managing everything. However, 4 BG rounds are longer than average PoE combat. Obsidian may want their combat not to drag on, and this adds an element of realism that I like. However, it won't hurt if combat gets a slightly slower pace in the way @Sensuki suggested, lower per-hit damage.

In reply to the OP, I too think Pillars will be a great game ! And a large part of its greatness comes from the backer community and all their nagging and hard work.

For me, 'Pillars of Eternity' would be the 'big' RPG title if they were to be released at the same time with the new Witcher, even though I'm a fan of the Witcher series

I'm pleased with the announced changes to engagement. Well, yes. But ironically the fixes mentioned by Josh all amount to deemphasizing the role of engagement. They're going to remove abilities that increase range and, if I understand correctly, add some sort of internal cooldown. When you feel that an obvious solution to something is having less of it you need to stop and think if the better solution is having none of it. This is what I've always wanted- less of it. The closer it gets to D&D's 'Attack of Opportunity', the better for me. Now all I hope is that Sensuki won't manage to abuse it once more.

Pillars of Eternity is an rpg with classes and thank god they are many and they feel very special and unique.

I don't think that completely addresses it. It should still technically be possible to get an opening round of disengagement attacks by luring melee foes to a clump of your characters, particularly with Fighters who have multiple engagements. I will try to achieve that in the next build and see how I go. You saw that I was able to achieve at least one disengagement attack per-character with my Rogue and Barbarian examples, while smarter targeting may make that harder to achieve, should still be possible, and if so - will remain the best way to open combat against a group of melee opponents. From my perspective, going through the trouble to pull this off is completely legit- your cunning strategic party formation outsmarted your opponents. And it may as well be the best opening to a fight (there's always a best opening in every fight), but not everyone will go through the trouble to achieve this.

Thank you for enlighting us on the team's work for that matter and I hope this eliminates the exploits. On another matter, you didn't mention something about diseng. atks proccurence, so we can assume that engagement retains its current role- stationary melee ? -Or when saying 'defender', you mean anyone in melee who has engaged a target ?

Unacceptable for the game to be subject to abuse so easily.

. . . . . . . Reading the BB forums, one can think- 'What did Obsidian do right in this game ???' Edit: then I read from Josh Sawyer that it is a bug

For starters, I'd like all floating info above PCs to be moved down, onto the character portraits.

Yeah, I'm pretty glad we have that !

I liked your post, as many others, to spread the msg. Following discussion in this thread, I'd like to point out that the final KS Stretch Goal was to generally enhance the game. I thought that requests like theone we have here fall under that stretch goal.

Walking in combat ? Too relaxed don't you think

Combat: always Run Outside Combat: toggable Walk/Run speed

A fresh idea with much promise !

But my personal preference is to remove the mechanic and all talents- class abilities associated with it.

Still, even at the current state of the game I'm sure if one does not seek to exploit combat and accept things as they are, they are going to enjoy it. Of course this does not negate the fact that engagement exploits must be dealt with. As for removing the mechanic altogether, this is unlikely to happen. As far as I am concerned, I have the good will to play the game as the devs intend to, even if that means intentionally 'hampering' myself to do so (a thing I've always done in the IE games also, since I try to role-play combat too, and this has added to the play experience of those games for me)

When are we going to see a reply to this thread by a developer ? Engagement has been discused over and over and we need to know how OE views our views.

I'm certain that anyone who plays the game avoiding exploits, cheesy tactics and acknowledging engagement for what it is (stationary melee; unless you have an ability 'escape button') will enjoy combat at any difficulty setting. Don't forget there is still a ton of polish, responsiveness and bug fixing to come. Many people (including myself) had different expectations, but in the end all that matters is what I said on upper paragraph

Although not shown in game, your comrades are supposed to treat your wounded body and bring you back to consciousness when the battle ends. But you succumb to your wounds if alone and not receiving treatment. It's somewhat like in D&D, where 0 HP drops you,but actual death happens at -10 HP, a point you will most likely get to unless someone treats you (you continue to lose HP until you stabilise)

My dear @Razsious... Engagement behaves very harshly from day 1 and no change is implimented yet, *as if it is intended to completely hamper movement in melee rather than discourage doing so* Maybe that was the original intention but for some reason it wasn't stated? A motionless melee, which sure has benefits for combat designers- better control over encounter difficulty. However, no system is without flaw and engagement can be exploited for our benefit, as shown by @Sensuki. *I think* it was said that devs are working on making engagement better, as surprising as this sounds. Most likely they ve discovered it can be exploited (probably before @Sensuki) and are working on making it nonexploitable. Hey, they may even throw in the disengagement atk animation (same as creatures auto atk) for us lucky fellas !