Update #44: The Rules of (Melee) Engagement

[Keyrock]

I imagine there will be abilities that can be learned both to bolster or bypass the engagement zones, correct?  We already know about the aforementioned wind sprint, will there be something like tumbling to give you a chance to avoid disengagement attacks?  How about abilities to enlarge the engagement zone or make disengagement attacks that much more punishing?  Then of course there are any number of potential spells to bypass engagement zones like teleport, invisibility, etherealness, who knows maybe there would be spells to enhance the engagement zones somehow too?

[Gfted1]

I imagine there will be abilities that can be learned both to bolster or bypass the engagement zones, correct?  We already know about the aforementioned wind sprint, will there be something like tumbling to give you a chance to avoid disengagement attacks?  How about abilities to enlarge the engagement zone or make disengagement attacks that much more punishing?  Then of course there are any number of potential spells to bypass engagement zones like teleport, invisibility, etherealness, who knows maybe there would be spells to enhance the engagement zones somehow too?

 

We want Engagement to be a mechanic that players and enemies can mess with using a variety of class Abilities and general Talents, so we will be experimenting with a variety of elements to that end:

• Fighters' Defender mode allows them to engage two additional targets and increases the range at which they engage targets. This gives fighters much greater capability to control the area around them.
• The limited-use Escape ability lets rogues break Engagement without provoking a Disengagement Attack. It is generally best used when the rogue's enemy is preoccupied with another target.
• Barbarians can use Wild Rush to temporarily ignore the movement stop and hit reactions from Engagement and Disengagement Attacks, respectively -- though they can still suffer massive damage while powering through.
• The wizards' Grimoire Slam allows them to attack an enemy in melee with their magically-charged grimoires, unleashing a concussive wave of energy on contact. If it hits, the attack knocks the target back, usually far enough to break Engagement in the process.

Additionally, creatures may have their own special abilities related to Engagement and Disengagement Attacks. We hope that the system itself is easy to understand but allows for increasingly complex tactical considerations over the course of the game.

[morrow1nd]

-KRAAAAAAA

 

-Welcome to the dungeon!

 

-Ha ha whatever sucker

 

I dont remember how many times i wathced this but i'm still laughin ^^

 

Thanks for the great update Mr.Josh

 

Well i cant say anyhthing about others but i'll accept any mechanic without questioning if you are going to present it this way ) 

 

After a tiresome week this felt good ^^

[rjshae]

But the grimoire slam thing ... I don't like this much at all. If you want to give wizards a "push" cantrip or some other low level spell that can buffet an opponent to break engagement, then that's fine, but the idea of slamming an unwieldy tome of magic around the battlefield -- a rare and precious item in a world without a printing press -- just seems kind of "derpy" to me.

Yes I agree it is a little odd, but I get the sense that the effect comes from the energy release rather than from the impact. In other words, it may function like a melee "touch" attack with the book acting as the focus. Just having a wimpy wizard whack somebody with a dusty great tome probably isn't going to result in quite the same transfer of momentum.

Edited March 1, 2013 by rjshae

[olban]

We're not making a single-character MMO.  We're making a party-based RPG.  We're making it to appeal to the general tastes of audiences that have played D&D-based tactical party RPGs in the past.  Yes, when you play a single character, having that single character be locked down is annoying because your only character is prevented from moving.  You have a whole party to use.

 

We're also making this game for an audience that we believe wants increased challenge and will not react negatively to mechanics that require increased attention and player input.  There are clearly limits to this, but we are willing to try this mechanic because we believe it is more appropriate for our audience.

I agree and I also think that even if the pathing would be flawed (not saying it will be) it would still be better than agro tanking, wow mecanics etc. because I´ve seen it in almost every rpg-game for years and I don´t like it. I think it streamlines gameplay and kills diversity. I like the engagement rules because it opens up new possibilities instead of just making you run around and make big monsters angry. I like these types of rules because it works in conjunction with spells and other types of abilities and make them more than they where before the implementation of the rules. It gives spellcasting and other abilitys a new depht because you can for example use them to force opponents to leave the zone of engagement. You can engagelock enemy fighters and throw fearlike spells for higher damage or mayby throw confusion spells to have the enemy engagelock their own troops. This kind of tactics could not be used to the same extent with agro tanking and similar less tactic-friendly rules.  

[ddillon]

 

 

 

snip

Batting away grimoires isn't something we're implementing just as batting away swords, bows, etc. are also not being implemented. Wizards aren't unique in this regard.

 

Not a good comparison. Disarming a trained swordsman significantly differs from batting away the grimoire of a wizard focused on spellcasting (reading or using the grimoire as a focus to channel magical energy or whatever). Also, in the case of the wizard as you've outlined the class (dependent on a grimoire), it is simply the most obvious tactic... meaning that you'd best have some explanation for its absence as an option to avoid the barrage of inevitable questions about it. Best bet is probably some kind of in-universe mumbo-jumbo about the grimoire being mystically linked to the wizard to the extent that it'd simply float back to him, I suppose. Or something.

 

Also: No disarming abilities/feats/talents, then?

Engagement range is only a little more than a character width (barring special circumstances). When a fighter activates his or her Defensive mode, his or her attack speed goes down. Pretty much all modal abilities that characters get will have an inherent trade-off, though the tactical application of the mode logically will grant an advantage in the appropriate circumstance.

That's good to know. I hope for the best... but I'm playing NWN2 now (awful combat/control/etc), so I naturally fear the worst. I hesitate to outright say it, but all of this (engagement and grimoires) seems to me to be a convoluted attempt at solving problems already solved in DA:O with threat/aggro mechanics, cooldowns, mana, etc. But whatever: I suppose I'm in the minority in my preferences. Here's hoping you pull off the near-impossible and make it all work somehow. I certainly want you to succeed: DA2 ruined that series, after all, so you seem to be our only hope for a decent party-based CRPG at present. Edited March 2, 2013 by ddillon

[rjshae]

Also: No disarming abilities/feats/talents, then?

 

Funny thing about disarming: in NWN2, Disarm was a creature blueprint setting that was set to off by default. Thus it only worked if the builders remember to turn it on. Boy, that was sure a waste of a feat. But I guess they had to make it a toggle-able setting since monster attacks were modeled as equipped items.

[Lephys]

Not a good comparison. Disarming a trained swordsman significantly differs from batting away the grimoire of a wizard focused on spellcasting (reading or using the grimoire as a focus to channel magical energy or whatever). Also, in the case of the wizard as you've outlined the class (dependent on a grimoire), it is simply the most obvious tactic... meaning that you'd best have some explanation for its absence as an option to avoid the barrage of inevitable questions about it. Best bet is probably some kind of in-universe mumbo-jumbo about the grimoire being mystically linked to the wizard to the extent that it'd simply float back to him, I suppose. Or something.

How about the fact that it would probably be about as good of an idea as trying to slap the electrode stick off an active arc-welder, or the lightning rod off the roof of a skyscraper in the middle of an electrical storm?

 

"That magical tome seems to be a conduit through which that Wizard is channeling fiery black liquid death... QUICK! GO TOUCH IT!"

 

Also, even easier than knocking a Wizard's grimoire from his hand would be for a Wizard to disarm all melee opponents wielding metal weapons in the vicinity by super-heating them all. Hell, that's probably as easy as boiling water for his morning tea.

[ddillon]

 

 

snip

How about the fact that it would probably be about as good of an idea as trying to slap the electrode stick off an active arc-welder, or the lightning rod off the roof of a skyscraper in the middle of an electrical storm?

 

"That magical tome seems to be a conduit through which that Wizard is channeling fiery black liquid death... QUICK! GO TOUCH IT!"

 

 

Not bad (made me smile), but...

 

Do I take the fiery black liquid death to the face or risk knocking that grimoire away? Hmm... Risking it!

 

Actually, I'd prefer cleaving the hand holding the grimoire... but game limitations & all that, you know? haha

Also, even easier than knocking a Wizard's grimoire from his hand would be for a Wizard to disarm all melee opponents wielding metal weapons in the vicinity by super-heating them all. Hell, that's probably as easy as boiling water for his morning tea.

I like it! How about:

 

Hot Potato

Evocation [Fire]

Level: Fire 3, Sor/Wiz 3

Components: V, S

Casting time: 1 standard action

Range: Sight of caster

Area/Targets: One creature/level

Duration: Instantaneous

Saving Throw: Fortitude negates

 

Affected creatures that fail their fortitude saves drop any currently equipped weapons. It requires one full round to pick up and ready weapons dropped as a result of this spell. Additionally, creatures having dropped their weapons must make an additional reflex save or suffer an attack of opportunity from all enemies within range.

 

Yes?

[Elerond]

 

 

 

snip

Batting away grimoires isn't something we're implementing just as batting away swords, bows, etc. are also not being implemented. Wizards aren't unique in this regard.

 

Not a good comparison. Disarming a trained swordsman significantly differs from batting away the grimoire of a wizard focused on spellcasting (reading or using the grimoire as a focus to channel magical energy or whatever). Also, in the case of the wizard as you've outlined the class (dependent on a grimoire), it is simply the most obvious tactic... meaning that you'd best have some explanation for its absence as an option to avoid the barrage of inevitable questions about it. Best bet is probably some kind of in-universe mumbo-jumbo about the grimoire being mystically linked to the wizard to the extent that it'd simply float back to him, I suppose. Or something.

 

I think that if wizard's soul energy which she or he has stored in grimoire is unleashed when it touches someone other than wizard her-/himself, then it is probably bad tactic to hit it as that will only cause magical backslash against hitter him-/herself.

 

And of course grimoires are probably warded so that only their owners can touch them and others will get previously mentioned magical backslash.

[Macs]

Nice tidbits about grimoires. I interpret it like that: to cast a spell, you need some sort of spell focus. So, maybe you could use totems and hang your whole body full of items, or you can draw some kind of symbol on a sheet of paper and put it into your enchanted war-book, so you have a selection of spells ready to use without taking up a whole lot of space and weight. Extra bonus: the hide of the grimoire itself is enchanted with some kind of shockwave spell to get rid of pesky little melee fighters.

[Monte Carlo]

Beating up people with reinforced combat books is deeply cool and anybody who can't see that needs their head examining.

[Monte Carlo]

Sawyer, was the keening, haunting croak from Hawk The Slayer?

 

 

 

OH NOES!!!

[TheSadDragon]

Hello All,

 

I got a related question on the topic of Melee Characters, even it not exactly related to the Melee Engagement Mechanic.

 

In most, if not all, CRPGs you end up with a strange power divide between the Melee Classes and the Mage Classes where the power starts in favour of the Melee Classes and then gradually shifts to the Mage Classes. Some of this might have to do with the fact that a lot of CRPGs are influenced by the DnD and other d20 games. Another part might simply be that most CRPGs try to keep it somewhat realistic and that in turn makes it easier to come up with jaw-dropping spells that would be cool to have but to compensate the mages need to be "hard to master" -- or simply hard pressed to survive long enough to learn the spells.

 

I was wondering what's Obsidian's oppinion on this for Project Eternity.

Are we going to see the classic power evolution where a mage starts out as relativly weak and then becomes powerfull were as the fighter goes the other way around?

Or are we going to see some mechanics put in place so that both classes evolve throughout the game without much, if any, power gap between them?

 

Sorry if this has been asked before -- but it hasn't been adressed in the QnA's and at least not in this thread so I figured I should go ahead and post it.

 

 

Thanks for the updates, always fun to check out how the game is progressing!

 

-TSD

[Somna]

Nice tidbits about grimoires. I interpret it like that: to cast a spell, you need some sort of spell focus. So, maybe you could use totems and hang your whole body full of items, or you can draw some kind of symbol on a sheet of paper and put it into your enchanted war-book, so you have a selection of spells ready to use without taking up a whole lot of space and weight. Extra bonus: the hide of the grimoire itself is enchanted with some kind of shockwave spell to get rid of pesky little melee fighters.

Not necessarily. It could easily be that this style of magic uses a focus to, well, focus the soul's power a specific way, while another style (like possibly Cipher magic) doesn't care about foci.

[rjshae]

Beating up people with reinforced combat books is deeply cool and anybody who can't see that needs their head examining.

 

Especially when wielding the great two-handed grimoire...

 

[mars84]

Thanks for the update.

 

I was wondering how the disengagement attacks would work with mind-control/crowd control abilities? Could I mind control an enemy and constantly have the disengage my melee fighter to score free attacks?

 

If my melee fighter was surrounded by smaller enemies, could I cast a fear spell on them to score free disengagement attacks on them as they run away? Would this be equal to the number engaged or can this be upped? It would be cool to have a combo where you could send weaker enemies running and then clean them up with disengagement attacks.

 

Finally, how would the animation system work for all of this? If a fighter was mid-swing and and an opponent disengages, would they escape freely if they could do so before the attack animation ends? I would hope because it would be jarring for the disengagement system to trigger a disengagement attack if they cannot physically complete the swing in time.

Edited March 3, 2013 by mars84

[TheSadDragon]

Finally, how would the animation system work for all of this? If a fighter was mid-swing and and an opponent disengages, would they escape freely if they could do so before the attack animation ends? I would hope because it would be jarring for the disengagement system to trigger a disengagement attack if they cannot physically complete the swing in time.

 

 

They could do this by animation switching where they continue the swing to hit both the targets in some way. It also depends a bit on how real-time, real-time is. I'm guessing it's all turnbased in the background in which case both actions will be resolved after one another and thus makes it easier for the engine to have a solution in place for times like the one in your example. If its supposed to happen at the exact same time I'm guessing we will see some priority queue in the background that determin which attack should take priority -- or if we are lucky, we might be able to influence the priority queue.

 

-TSD

[Tamerlane]

At present, they do not plan to animate disengagement attacks, just as opportunity attacks were not animated in NWN and NWN2 and extra attacks per round were not animated in the IE games. They've said that if they hope to find a more elegant solution, but don't hold your breath. It is this way specifically to avoid the problem of "what happens if someone disengages mid-swing?"

 

And there are no hidden turns/rounds. It's entirely real-time.

Edited March 3, 2013 by Tamerlane

[ddillon]

^ These "problems" are indicators that attacks of opportunity and engagement mechanics aren't suited to this genre (real time with pause) and that these systems don't make sense in a real-time context (being able to attack a fleeing a opponent while currently attacking another). This is why I suggested that engagement be an active mode that causes fighters to lose all or at least half of their normal attacks per round while using it, because this would instill at least some sense of sanity and balance. Fighters already quickly butcher virtually all other classes (excepting fighter variants of course) in close quarters combat, and this mechanic seems designed to make things even worse, to make it damn near impossible to flee. At this point, I'm hoping that (as mentioned) the engagement area is *very* small and *not* enlarged by gaining levels, taking feats/talents, etc. Maybe then it won't be the nightmare that it seems... here's hoping for the best.

Edited March 4, 2013 by ddillon

[Tamerlane]

Fighters already quickly butcher virtually all other classes (excepting fighter variants of course) in close quarters combat, and this mechanic seems designed to make things even worse, to make it damn near impossible to flee.

It must be nice having such hands-on experience with games that don't yet exist. Hey, have you played the new Torment game yet? Debating whether or not I want to throw money at its Kickstarter campaign.

[ddillon]

^ Obviously I was making a comment on fighters in general in the IE and Aurora games... you know, the inspiration for PE? And of course in the video Sawyer is talking about fighters in the IE and expanding and 'fixing' those mechanics... So, yeah... You a bit slow?

 

Edit: On a diplomatic note, I don't know you, so perhaps you meant that as good-natured humor to make the point (that this is a different game, that fighters might not insta-kill most other classes in PE, etc)... If so, take no offense from my return jab. Internet communication and all that.

Edited March 4, 2013 by ddillon

[Tamerlane]

A little from column A and a little from column B. It was a joke, but yeah, you are assuming too much about What Fighters Are Like in PE. Hell, when people talk about fighters in the IE games, "underpowered" is usually the word that gets thrown around, so I don't really get where this fear about fighters being too good at fighting comes from.

 

Besides that, engagement is not a thing only fighters can do. Fighters have at least one feat that makes them better at engaging. They might have more and they might not. Other classes might have feats that improve how they engage or they might not. But as it stands - and if I'm mistaken, someone please tell me to shut the **** up - as it stands, anyone holding a melee weapon can engage another enemy.

[Elerond]

In my opinion control areas, in this case engagement area, work fine in tactic or strategy based real time games, especially those with pause. Because they add consideration and variation to tactics what one should use.

 

And I think this update's rule system would work fine if it is tuned correctly. As normally character can only engage one character at time, so if you don't want your character to be engaged you only need to move another character to same engagement. And rules give additions like fighters can engage three characters at the time, but with cost of their offensive abilities, so fighter can block three enemies at the time, but this also means that fighter can't him/her self get rid off those enemies and s/he must hope that his or her allies come help or do their rangerd mojo before s/he is overrunned. And roques have abilities to unengage them at their own will with out any consequences. Barbarians can run through enemy lines. And other classes probably will have some abilities also. So engagement system brings new challenges but also ways to solve those challenges.

 

Engagements will also give more important role for formations, as front men can stop enemy at least for short time before they can pursue your class cannon's etc. long range characters. So it is not any more necessary to try confuse enemy's pathfinding as gameplay mechanics now give legit way to block enemys path.

 

Because we don't even know basic rule set how combat goes in PE (except that there will not be combat rounds), so I would not start yet yelling how one mechanic will cause fighters or any other class to be dominant in combat as it all depends how rules work and how balance between classes is made.

[ScytheKnight]

Was really interesting to note how it was mentioned that an ability like a defensive stance, will make it easier for a fighter type to control an area for things like attacks of oppertunity.

 

A very small but really great little thing, it makes a fighter as much about battlefield control as damage dealing. As mentioned in the older Infinity engine games fighters could often wind up a pinata with a pointy stick... they just walked accross the battlefield and wacked the other guys over the head until they cried... every step getting pounded by spells and ranged attacks.

 

But with a system like this it's a different story, now a fighter can place themselves strategicly to control a choke point or 'back to back' with a more vulerable party member to protect them. The biggest thing is they now have a role on the battlefield beyond being able to hit the other guy more then they get hit.