Namutree

Sure, these are all options, but these games are beatable without any spellcasters, with an underleveled party, with a party that can't use shields at all and without any archers. That's part of the reason why they have replay value. Fine. Use the wand of monster summoning. Drink lots of health potions during the fight. Use a team of stealthy characters for sneak attacks. Use oils of speed.

Summon a bunch of skeletons and have them kill all the bandits. Or just be really over leveled. Or just have everyone in your party wear large shields. Or be a team of archers yourself. Use that spell (I forget it's name) that grants you immunity to arrows.

In fantasy worlds without an established binary morality. Once again; you seem to discussing the idea of anti-villains in fantasy without taking into account that Starwars specifically has already established that it has binary morality. Not to mention that the Starwars universe is silly and unsuited for depth and nuance. EDIT: As for games; I've already established in my arguing with Sharp_one that video games and movies have different rules.

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. There is plenty for them to reply to. They could for example; let us know that they are dealing with the fact that the engagement mechanic can be horribly abused. The last time they talked about it all they said was that it needed better UI and some animations. They didn't say a peep about how broken it is. Letting us know that the issue can and will be resolved within a reasonable time frame would certainly give me a lot more reason to think the mechanic should stay.

It blatantly doesn't or else you wouldn't be campaigning for it's removal. It basically does. Sensuki's already released one video showing how it plays the same. He already said he'll release more. The crux of his argument isn't that engagement will ruin the game. It can be removed via modding after all, but rather getting it to work decent will require way too much work and resources. Especially since it doesn't really contribute much of anything to the game.

What is DOtA?

Don't the monks use wounds?

I really hope they can. I sure wish they'd give us an idea if this will be getting fixed. Well then you better hope that engagement gets cut. The existence of the mechanic actively disincentives OE from making the AI good. Engagement is so tactically restrictive that it makes the difference between good AI and bad AI basically moot. In many cases it would be stupid to go after the back row.

I think they should keep the shared health, but the Ranger needs: A) More health and stamina so the companion taking damage isn't so terrible. B) The animal companions need to be able to be return to their master. Kind of like a summon. The IE games did this (sort of) with their familiars. This will make it so they don't clutter up the screen and take up too much space. This will also allow you to get them out of danger when needed.

I really am wondering where the people are getting this idea that it's core game mechanic from. It's a minor feature that has been haphazardly thrown in. There's a reason why even this late into development it hasn't been fully implemented; because it wasn't considered important. It's the same reason why it can be removed easily by Sensuki and all the other mechanics still work fine. Because they aren't based on engagement.

I've never seen Blade Runner. I will now though. That scene was awesome. Then again Blade Runner I suspect is a very different universe than Starwars. I agree there is nothing wrong with anti-villains, but they don't belong in Starwars' silly universe.

The first part is true, but it isn't Hayden's fault. George wanted a sympathetic villain rather than a cool bad ass villain. Can't say I blame him since there are plenty on this board who think it was the right call, and want it to be continued into episode 7. Here is what I think will be a villain you guys will like: Give him that stupid sword and he's ready to go.

That was back when Lucas knew what he was going for.

The flaws are bad writing. Period. You also ignore that fact that settings grow and develop over time, as the writer and audience grows. Case in point, compare The Hobbit with LoTR. LOTR is better in every way. LOTR is a brilliant example! Both the Hobbit and LOTR are high fantasy stories with binary morality. If only the prequels had taken the same route as the LOTR. Tolken didn't take his world and go, "You know what? This story needs moral ambiguity and nuance; no more of this good vs evil nonsense; it's immature!" If he had done so the LOTR wouldn't have been nearly as good as it was. The story was expanded, but not contradicted (in any meaningful way). Smaug was evil. Sauron was evil. There was no attempt to make that universe something it could never be. Compare that to what the prequels did. They took a universe with binary morality, and made it morally gray. Which of course meant adding in stupid events to try and justify it. Stupid events means stupid dialog. I don't how anyone could have taken the idea of Anakin falling to the dark side, while keeping him sympathetic, and made it work well. It can't be done. This guy will never make a great Starwars villain: Star Wars can work in many ways, and those concepts are not "alien" or incompatible with SW. No, it can't. It's already established that there is a binary morality in the force. The force (good), and the dark side (evil). Not to mention that the Starwars universe is just plain silly in a lot areas. It's not a good template for an in depth and nuanced story. We got that with the prequels; look how that turned out.

The thing they most need to do is assure us that the mechanic will be fixed by launch. Just a simple post like, "Don't worry; we're already working on it. Hopefully the exploit will be fixed by the next update. If not by then, it'll be the update after that." A post of that nature would do much to help quell the anti-engagement crowd. Yet, they haven't said a peep about it. Maybe I'm paranoid, but that seems like a bad sign.

I always kept him swarmed with the wand of monster summoning.

Hilarious.

I've seen it. It's hilarious!

I responded to their arguments, and never backpedaled. I established that I liked Kotor 2 as a video game due to its mechanics, but I didn't like the story. Then you claim that since I liked the game that means I was wrong. I then re-established that I liked the game based on the game mechanics. I don't know how that could be backpedaling as it's more akin to repeating myself. If anything you ignored what I said. That's probably true. If they want to think that the ideas and tone of the prequels could have worked as well as if not better than the originals if only they were executed better; I doubt I can change their minds.

That's a good idea. I got another one! How about the Ranger gets a minor stat boost based on which companion he chooses? Like say... +4 Health/Stamina every 3 levels if he chooses the bear.

Maybe in very specific scenarios it could mean just barely surviving an attack that the Ranger would have otherwise been killed in.

It was mine! I think the Ranger needs more health; not more stamina, but more health. Maybe 2 more health per level?

Your words: "it's going to lead to some stupid events, dialog, and motivations." Events, dialog and motivations of characters are not something that is restricted to movies, so other media examples that includes them are just as valid. And as you said yourself K2 was good and the prequels were bad. So the implementation of moral ambiguity and nuance are bad goes out of the window and you confirmed. Not true. Thanks to being a video-game it has time to convey these concepts better than a movie can. Hence my line, "Different rules apply." What you also seemed to have missed is the part where I mentioned that the story was lackluster, as in; not good. The reason I still liked the game was for the mechanics and character choice.

KotOR 2? What of it? It contradicts everything you claimed about Star Wars above. Not to mention tons of comics, books etc. that made moral ambiguity and nuance work very well in SW universe. So your claims are not true. The expanded universe is both not cannon and mostly terrible. Not to mention they're not movies (mostly, but the expanded universe movies are horrible). As for Kotor 2: 1: It's a role-playing video game, not a movie; different rules apply. 2: Kotor 2 isn't really all that great. The mechanics were a blatant improvement over Kotor 1, but the story, characters, and atmosphere were very lackluster. It's a good game, but nothing special.

KotOR 2? What of it?