Waywocket Posted August 19, 2014 Posted August 19, 2014 So engagement sounds, on paper, like a pretty straightforward mechanic. The concept is simple to understand, and yet in practice it turns out I find it very confusing. I can't seem to see anything that tells you when a character is engaged, and by whom. Am I missing something, or is it not there? Coupled with the tendency of enemies to run right up to you and cluster tightly together, the effect in practice is that combat consists of a ton of characters practically standing on top of each other, with it impossible to see who is attacking whom, and me too afraid to move anyone because they will get horribly stabbed if I try. I guess if you've initiated combat by getting the drop on your enemies, you can pre-position your party to minimise the problem, but outside of that, how are people dealing with this? Is it something you just get better at with more practice?
nikolokolus Posted August 19, 2014 Posted August 19, 2014 One assumes that they still plan to come up with an "engagement" visual feedback marker/token/animation at some point. Other than that I just presume characters are engaged if they are toe-to-toe with an enemy. Then again, early beta and all that.
Billy O Posted August 19, 2014 Posted August 19, 2014 I guess if you've initiated combat by getting the drop on your enemies, you can pre-position your party to minimise the problem, but outside of that, how are people dealing with this? Is it something you just get better at with more practice? This is how I'm dealing with it so far. I have two tanks who initiate the combat and engage the enemies and they do stick pretty well. Some indicator would be nice though.
sparklecat Posted August 19, 2014 Posted August 19, 2014 Possible visual cue for engagement: change the colours of the circles underneath the enemies that are engaged with a character when you select that character. 1
Caerdon Posted August 19, 2014 Posted August 19, 2014 From the announcement: Our UI is still being polished and fully implemented. Things like our death screen, stealth UI, and the engagement UI, are all being implemented or tweaked. Be patient.
nikolokolus Posted August 19, 2014 Posted August 19, 2014 From the announcement: Our UI is still being polished and fully implemented. Things like our death screen, stealth UI, and the engagement UI, are all being implemented or tweaked. Be patient. I think most people get that, but If their goal is to create more elegant and intuitive UI and visual feedback elements then they need to hear about user experiences.
Kaz Posted August 19, 2014 Posted August 19, 2014 I appreciate any feedback. We have temporary UI in place to indicate who is engaging who, but it quickly adds a lot of visual clutter so we have it disabled in the beta build. The first step would be to get visual feedback for targeting in the game. (highlighting the current target of the character you have selected or are hovering over) Altering selection circle color is not a bad idea, but engagement stuff is pretty vital information and I'm a bit concerned about spell effects etc. covering it up, especially in the late game. We will first get the target indicators working and take it from there. 3
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