Combat Rtwp.

[Yonjuro]

My goal as a player is not to have fun, my goal is to optimize my decisions, fun should be a subproduct of that. That is what optimal play is. When people analyze optimal play fun is not on the ecuation.

A good game design, makes it that the search for optimal play, produces fun for the one involved as a subproduct.

 

 

 Let me try to rephrase what you said to see if I understand you: Your point is that the game gives you resources and objectives. Your job is to use those resources in an optimal way to solve the objectives and the game designer's job is to make sure that the optimal solution is also fun. Is that right?

 

 

 potentially playing very well in terms of optimal problem solving

 

Is hard to believe that if they willingly not maximize the use of a resource they have, specially one that is infinite.

 

 You keep using the word optimal so I suppose we should define what you mean.

 

 What is the cost function in a game and what is the loss function you are trying to optimize with respect to the costs?

 

 E.g. one loss function is minimax, the usual game tree optimization loss function. Another is expected loss where you minimize the expected value of the loss function -  very common in games with randomness where your moves don't result in a defined game state change but rather a change in the distribution of possible next game states. 

 

Of course there are many others but when you talk about optimal play in a TB game I think you mean minimax loss. RTwP games tend more towards minimizing expected loss. I don't find either loss function inherently more fun but it's ok with me if you do.

 

 Regarding the cost function: this is complicated.

 

 Let's look at Baldur's Gate 1 as an example. To beat the game you need to uncover the identity of the bad guy, Sarevok, and kill him without having your PC die at any point in the game. There isn't a fully specified cost function for every instance of the game so the optimal way to do that varies.

 

 The usual way to play is to explore the maps and recruit some of the NPCs etc. Most people find this fun due as much to the characters as to the game play. I'll talk about optimal play for this particular case later.

 

 To get a more powerful party, one could roll all six characters. The game would be easier because you can optimize all 6 characters for your preferred play style. One could argue that it makes better use of the resources the game provides you. 

 

 Another way to play is to solo the game - optimal play in that case usually involves finding things early in the game to kill that your solo character will be good at killing (depending on class) to level up more quickly.  

 

 A fourth way is to never hit the level up button and beat the game as a level one character; playing that way, optimal play is to kill as few things as possible (it's beatable with 13 kills; possibly with 11). 

 

 So, BG1: I think you would call it a toy since those four play styles have different optimal solutions (they are different games). Rather than a toy, I would say that it has an under specified cost function. I consider that a good feature since it has more replay value.

 

 Some BG1 game instances will be more fun than others and there are pathological cases.

 

 For example, if you wanted to, and you had a lot of time, you could hit the level cap on any map with respawning enemies.

 

 You're free to blame the developers if you spent several days killing diseased gibberlings on the map just outside of Candlekeep, why on earth would anybody do that when there are more interesting ways to play? 

[Waterd]

Optimal I mean what action maximizes the chances of succeeding at the goal. Optimal play is course of action that maximizes your chances of achieving your goal. You are presenting decisions rules that can be used to find what is optimal, which sure can be used, whatever, I dont see how is that relevant to this conversation.

 

In BG1 example you presented 4 possible rules that you can play with. So I agree they are 4 different games.

Is the job of the designer to tell me the rules, and is my job to find the solution. If the designer tell me those 4 games are fun, because he designed them to be fun, then sure i will play any of them.

 

For example, if you wanted to, and you had a lot of time, you could hit the level cap on any map with respawning enemies.

 You're free to blame the developers if you spent several days killing diseased gibberlings on the map just outside of Candlekeep, why on earth would anybody do that when there are more interesting ways to play? 

 

Because the rules allowed me to do so, and I find when i search for the optimal play, to be the optimal play, and so if i want to play the game, i have no other option than to do what´s optimal.

 

Again you seem to miss that is not my job to look for fun in a game, it´s my job to look for what´s optimal play, looking for optimal play, hopefully is fun. The job of the designer is to find in what system, the search for optimal play is fun.

 

If i have to search what is fun, and create my own rules , then im no longer the player, im now the designer, wether i can then play my own game or not is irrelevant. I was just given a toy, i made it a game, and now i play my own game.

[Ginsu23]

"If the designer tell me those 4 games are fun, because he designed them to be fun, then sure i will play any of them."

 

So you can only have fun with something if you have been told by someone else that it is fun?

 

Waterd...I think everyone has been way too nice to you. it's nobody's job to make a game to satisfy you personally. a game has to be made for a general audience, not tailor made to suit every random person on the planet. if you like the game for the most part but some minor feature annoys you, change that feature yourself. stop whining and learn how to mod. or wait for someone else to mod it. If you hate rtwp so much, then turn on the "auto-pause at end of round" option that this game will likely have, and just pretend you're playing a turn-based game.  I absolutely loathe the way most of these races look, but it's not going to stop me from getting the game. If it bugs me enough I will mod it myself. I will not bug the developers to remake the game to suit my own personal tastes.  Why are you hating on rtwp so much anyway? If it is as big of an issue for you as it seems to be, just don't play buy the game. I don't see what arguing with people is going to accomplish. The rest of us are fine with rtwp or else we wouldn't care about this game. Telling to us about how crappy you think it is seems kind of pointless.

Edited September 14, 2014 by Ginsu23

[Waterd]

No, I will play them, I will play designed games, because that´s the point of playing  games other people design, for their design, i dont want to waste my time trying undesigned things and hope that is gonna be fun (almost always the answer is they are not) So by knowing someone actually tried to make it fun, there is a decent chance for it be fun for humans so there is a reason for me to spend time trying that game.

 

My arguments is that there are a lot of persons that find pausing every half second unfun.

Your recommendations of redesigning the game are not good for the reasons i already stated many times along the thread.

I already answered the other points and questions you made in your posts in the thread. There is no point for me to repeat myself, just read the thread.

Edited September 14, 2014 by Waterd

[Azrael Ultima]

My arguments is that there are a lot of persons that find pausing every half second unfun.

The major flaw of your argument is that most people will react to this by simply not doing it specificially because it isn't fun.

 

It's not a flaw of the game, it's a flaw of your supposedly optimal playstyle.

[Yonjuro]

Optimal I mean what action maximizes the chances of succeeding at the goal. Optimal play is course of action that maximizes your chances of achieving your goal. You are presenting decisions rules that can be used to find what is optimal, which sure can be used, whatever, I dont see how is that relevant to this conversation.

 

 

 It is relevant for two reasons:

 

 First, because with a RTwP game, one can play optimally (that is minimize the expected loss or, if you like, maximize the chance of success) without pausing after every 0.3 seconds of game play. You are free to continue playing any game any way you (don't) like, but it isn't rational to choose a style of play that you don't like and blame the game designer for not forcing you to do otherwise when there are other ways to play optimally.

 

 (On the other hand, if you prefer sequential decision making for whatever reason (or even for no reason) then there's good news: there are two kickstarted TB games coming out soon. Enjoy them.)

 

Second:

 

 

For example, if you wanted to, and you had a lot of time, you could hit the level cap on any map with respawning enemies....

Because the rules allowed me to do so, and I find when i search for the optimal play, to be the optimal play, and so if i want to play the game, i have no other option than to do what´s optimal.

 

 If you were going to play BG2 with the same character, you could hit the ToB level cap on that same map and then when you imported your character into BG2 you would start at the level cap. Doing so, would take you ... hmm ... about 3-6 months depending on how long you grind up diseased gibberlings each week. One could argue it is optimal to play that way - it is certainly low risk. Whether it's optimal to minimize risk by grinding easy enemies depends on your loss function.

 

 The word optimal by itself doesn't have a meaning without a cost function and a loss function. You can play a game in a risk averse manner or in a benefit seeking manner and you would play very differently but both play styles can be optimal as you've defined it (equal probability of success). So, of course you have options.

 

 If you look at some of the most heated arguments on the board, they tend to revolve around design decisions that remove options. In other words decisions that more fully specify the cost function of the game.

[Waterd]

Azreael ultima i already responded to that argument, repeating myself is pointless and your argument isnt new so i dont have anythign to add.

 

Yonjuro You can´t actually without pausing as often as physically possible.

It´s rational if i want to keep playing the game, instead of creating my own game. 

 

. One could argue it is optimal to play that way - it is certainly low risk. Whether it's optimal to minimize risk by grinding easy enemies depends on your loss function.

 

It´s optimal to minimize the risk by grinding easy enemies.

I disagree the word optimal do not have meaning without that  function

I already redefined optimal for what i mean. Optimal is whatever action that maximize tthe chances of completing the objective. That is optimal play.

Edited September 15, 2014 by Waterd

[Ginsu23]

I'm pretty sure Waterd is just a computer. He doesn't think, he calculates. He is an unfeeling machine designed to conquer all video games of the world in the most boring, joyless manner possible. Seriously dude. You sound like you try everything in your power to avoid having fun with any kind of game, so what do you want from us? As for your whole "It´s optimal to minimize the risk by grinding easy enemies." thing, wtf. If you are actually willing to grind for hours and hours on the same map just to make the next map a little easier, then maybe the only way you can have fun is to waste your life with pointless crap. All games have things that can be exploited, but you're missing one major thing here...what is optimal is whatever maximizes your enjoyment of a game and minimizes the time spent doing **** you don't wanna do. Optimal means maximizing gain and minimizing loss. The most valuable resource you have is time. Money is the 2nd most valuable. So if you are willing to spend 100+ hours grinding the same easy enemies so that a video game is a bit easier, then you have wasted so much time which could have been spent making money, you're losing the game of life. Seriously, if you're willing to spend that much time doing mindless repetitive things that you don't enjoy, then why don't you get a second job at a factory or something?

 

Even if you ignore what you're losing from reality, if you play a game like that you're not playing optimally either. Does time not factor into your method for optimally beating a game? If it takes you 50 times longer to beat a game than it should due to your grinding, then you have still lost. There's eventually a point where you're just screwing yourself over with that method.

Edited September 15, 2014 by Ginsu23

[Waterd]

All games have things that can be exploited,

 

Yes, and a fun game is one where exploting things is fun (see for example starcraft, league of legends, Chess, MTG, Street fighter, etc...)

 

The rest of the comment seems to indicate you missed the thread. 

[Ginsu23]

I read the thread. I just thought you needed to hear it again since you have been ignoring it for so long. But here's something I don't think anybody has said yet... You're Insane, get help. Nobody who thinks like you do can get any kind of enjoyment out of life. I shudder to think about your optimal solution to relationships.  There needs to be a balance between what is optimal and what is fun. Balance is key in all things. And I'm not talking about refusing to use the Master Sword because it's too O.P. I for one, look for optimization as well, but I will not stray outside the realm of what is fun for me. Supposedly Gnar is a really OP champ right now, but I don't play him because he is an annoying as hell yortle furry retard. If I was a pro-player I would choose him in a heart beat, but I'm not.

Edited September 15, 2014 by Ginsu23

[illathid]

As far your optimizing issue, in my opinion, it ruins the game. I happen to think that min-maxing has no place in RPGs. It takes the roleplay out of it. Part of the excitement, for me, is to take a least optimal race/class combo and try my damnest to succeed if not thrive.

 

You need to read up on the stormwind fallacy.

 

@Waterd

Where does diminishing returns factor into your optimal play structure? As I see it, pausing several times a second is not optimal as it only gives marginal benefit over pausing several times a minute.

[Waterd]

Diminishing returns only work when you spend a finite resource to do an action, since game time is infinite and pauses are infinite, diminishing returns is irrelevant.

I mean sure, every pause gives you less of a gain, but since you spent a infinite resource, it doesn´t matter.

Edited September 15, 2014 by Waterd

[Yonjuro]

 

Yonjuro You can´t actually without pausing as often as physically possible.

It´s rational if i want to keep playing the game, instead of creating my own game. 

 

 

 

  You're free to believe that, but it isn't true. These games aren't uniformly random, they have patterns. These patterns aren't even apparent at the 1/3 second time scale. You don't need to pause three times per second to respond optimally to changes in the game state. It may even be harder to figure out by mentally piecing together 1/3 second snippets of game.

 

 

Azreael ultima i already responded to that argument, repeating myself is pointless and your argument isnt new so i dont have anythign to add.

 

Yonjuro You can´t actually without pausing as often as physically possible.

It´s rational if i want to keep playing the game, instead of creating my own game. 

 

. One could argue it is optimal to play that way - it is certainly low risk. Whether it's optimal to minimize risk by grinding easy enemies depends on your loss function.

 

It´s optimal to minimize the risk by grinding easy enemies.

I disagree the word optimal do not have meaning without that  function

I already redefined optimal for what i mean. Optimal is whatever action that maximize tthe chances of completing the objective. That is optimal play.

 

 Yes, as I said,  I was using your made up definition of optimal in my post. The point is that there isn't one optimal (maximizing probability of success)  solution to BG - there are lots of optimal solutions (using your definition of optimal). The point that seems to have gotten lost is you seem to be fixated on the least interesting optimal solutions and blaming the game designers for that. You're free to do so, but it doesn't seem productive.

[Waterd]

It may even be harder to figure out by mentally piecing together 1/3 second snippets of game.

 

This is a semi valid claim , i disagree though.

 

No, there is only one optimal play unless you mean there are a lot of plays with the exact same result, which seems really only possible if the game is really really really shallow. So assuming the game has any kind of challenge at all, I will go ahead and claim there is only one optimal action.

 

If i have to decide if pause or not to pause, here is the problem. 

Is there a chance that by pausing I can have an opportunity to notice and improve an action of my units? If the chance is anything at all above zero, then the right answer, is to pause.

Since Pausing now has a EV of increment my chances of winning, but pausing has a cost of zero, any moment i´m trading a No cost action (like pausing) to increment my chances of winning no matter how small, i´m incrementing my EV of win rate.

 

Since pausing have a positive Expected value, I should do it whenever I can. Since I can pause extremly frequently, then, I should do so.

 

Your claim may be that there is ZERO chance, that a pause 0,3 seconds later may increase my winrate at all. I say that the having more information about the game state, has a chance of making me play better. I consider that on average I would do better actions if i´m more informed than if im less informed, that is considered a general rule of decision making. A better informed player has more chances of making a better decision than a less informed player. 

Since then we conclude that Pausing is +EV win rate, everytime the game state change, and the game state changes that often or more, then is easy to conclude I should pause that often.

[Yonjuro]

 

It may even be harder to figure out by mentally piecing together 1/3 second snippets of game.

 

This is a semi valid claim , i disagree though.

 

No, there is only one optimal play unless you mean there are a lot of plays with the exact same result, which seems really only possible if the game is really really really shallow. So assuming the game has any kind of challenge at all, I will go ahead and claim there is only one optimal action.

 

 Not the same result - the same probability of success.

 

 For example, staying with BG1, southwest of Nashkel you meet a party of 3 enemies, 1 strong melee character and 2 strong archers. A strategy that will get one or more of your party members killed is to have your melee characters engage the melee enemy because then the archers will cut them to pieces (archery being especially powerful in BG1).

 

 A better strategy is to have a melee character engage each archer in melee with the better protected character also drawing the enemy melee character. Then your ranged characters cut down the melee character followed by the two archers.

 

 Call your party melee characters PM1 and PM2 and the enemy archers EA1 and EA2. If PM1 attacks EA1 and PM2 attacks EA2 the probability of success will be the same as if it was reversed (PM1 attacks EA2; PM2 attacks EA1) as long as the same PMx draws the melee character.

 

  Since we've gone through the trouble of looking at an example, also note that, once the enemy melee character begins moving to attack your melee character, there is no need to pause the game until your melee character has engaged the enemy archer in melee  (a few seconds later).You would gain exactly zero actionable information about these three enemies (because even if your melee character gets hit by the archer, it is still optimal to continue and engage the archer in melee) and if you had stealth scouted the area in advance, you would also know that there are no other enemies that will attack you.

 

 So, yes, in this example, there is zero chance that pausing at that time will help you. There isn't really anything special about this example. It isn't hard to find other examples with symmetries that make the probabilities equal or committed enemies that make pausing unnecessary for several seconds at a time. 

[Waterd]

Same probability of success = same results, so yes.

 

In the case you described, assuming you use 6 characters, I think it makes a difference if the archer hit, if the archer does indeed hit, then it may be better to slow down and put other character in front to take the damage instead, or depending on the amount of damage, it may be ideal to heal the fighter. OR i may notice that all their archers are targeting the same fighter, so it´s better to put it back, or shield him or heal him. Until that point also i may notice that one of his archers took more serious damage , thus is better to redirect my ranged attacks to the now may day soon archer.

I think a lot of these situations in tactical combats, and i think in this case is no different, the only way to know or the properly analyze if i must make any kind of change of gear is to pause every time any damage happens , or any spell is cast or even early on when even any attack happens.

I played Ice wind dale 2 in hof and really the best way was to spread thing the damage through all your characters and also the focus, and it required multiple pauses to change and rechange the position of your summons, and specially to run away from melee characters, for example the best way to neutralize melee characters , since yours run faster than them was to every-time a melee character start walking in the direction of character A, you move character away, , but you need to put Character B enough in the path but not quite to allow character to throw the spell or the attack,as to not lose attack or spell actions, as soon as the enemy approach character you make character B walk away until it isn´t pursued anymore so he can use his spell or attack actions.

Tactics like this require extremely frequent pausing too.

 

In order for you to limit your opponent on who they attack and rotate characters movement attack and who are in target of their archers, require very frequent pausing.

I think Icewind dale 2 (the game i have more experinece with of the RTwP) even on HOF is an extremly ¨easy game¨ since the decisiosn one should make are pretty basic and repetitive HOWEVER, executiing them is infuriatingly annoying, slow and repetitive. Add to that that the combats are extremly slow since is optimal to pause extremly frequently, it all makes for a very boring experience, compared to any turn based game.

Edited September 15, 2014 by Waterd

[Azrael Ultima]

Diminishing returns only work when you spend a finite resource to do an action, since game time is infinite and pauses are infinite, diminishing returns is irrelevant.

I mean sure, every pause gives you less of a gain, but since you spent a infinite resource, it doesn´t matter.

Unless you are immortal, lifetime is finite. Game time is necessarily a fraction of a beings lifetime, and therefore also finite, and i'd posit that even an immortal is unlikely to spend infinite time on playing a game in an inherently unfun way.

 

Your argument is only true under conditions that never actually occur.

 

Your so-called optimal playstyle is only optimal if you ignore any out-of-game concerns.

[Iucounu]

Same probability of success = same results, so yes.

 

In the case you described, assuming you use 6 characters, I think it makes a difference if the archer hit, if the archer does indeed hit, then it may be better to slow down and put other character in front to take the damage instead, or depending on the amount of damage, it may be ideal to heal the fighter. OR i may notice that all their archers are targeting the same fighter, so it´s better to put it back, or shield him or heal him. Until that point also i may notice that one of his archers took more serious damage , thus is better to redirect my ranged attacks to the now may day soon archer.

I think a lot of these situations in tactical combats, and i think in this case is no different, the only way to know or the properly analyze if i must make any kind of change of gear is to pause every time any damage happens , or any spell is cast or even early on when even any attack happens.

I played Ice wind dale 2 in hof and really the best way was to spread thing the damage through all your characters and also the focus, and it required multiple pauses to change and rechange the position of your summons, and specially to run away from melee characters, for example the best way to neutralize melee characters , since yours run faster than them was to every-time a melee character start walking in the direction of character A, you move character away, , but you need to put Character B enough in the path but not quite to allow character to throw the spell or the attack,as to not lose attack or spell actions, as soon as the enemy approach character you make character B walk away until it isn´t pursued anymore so he can use his spell or attack actions.

Tactics like this require extremely frequent pausing too.

 

In order for you to limit your opponent on who they attack and rotate characters movement attack and who are in target of their archers, require very frequent pausing.

I think Icewind dale 2 (the game i have more experinece with of the RTwP) even on HOF is an extremly ¨easy game¨ since the decisiosn one should make are pretty basic and repetitive HOWEVER, executiing them is infuriatingly annoying, slow and repetitive. Add to that that the combats are extremly slow since is optimal to pause extremly frequently, it all makes for a very boring experience, compared to any turn based game.

HOF mode is basically the most hardcore mode in all the IE games (in a bad, tedious way.. hp and damage bloat), so it's a rather extreme example and not really representative. Besides, it's possible to build an effective tank even in HOF mode, so you don't need to resort to tactics like kiting or swapping, although admittedly, that's rather complicated.

If you need to kite enemies in standard mode, you're just playing the game wrong/bad.

 

I certainly didn't need to pause every half second when playing IE games, only in very hard battles at critical stages when I had to execute many steps where timing was important (which wasn't repetitive at all), and even then I didn't think of that as tedious (not any more tedious than it would be to play the battle turn-based). In a usual fight you don't need to make adjustments that often, and certainly not over the whole fight.

Edited September 15, 2014 by Iucounu

[Waterd]

Unless you are immortal, lifetime is finite.

 

So you are telling me ok, i have 20 years to finish the game, ok whatever, it´s still optimal to pause the exact same number of time, stop bringing that argument.

 

 so you don't need to resort to tactics like kiting or swapping,

 

Yes, you need to do that, to play your best.

If you need to kite enemies in standard mode, you're just playing the game wrong/bad.

 

Yes I need to do that, because that´s the best play, regardless.

 

 In a usual fight you don't need to make adjustments that often, and certainly not over the whole fight.

 

Yes, most humans need to do that if they want to maximize their chance of success.

Edited September 15, 2014 by Waterd

[Arcane Paladin]

Illithad, touche. My "attack" on optimization was poorly elaborated. I should have kept it to min-maxing. In a sense we all try to optimize by making our chars the best that they can be. You proved me wrong.

[Iucounu]

 

Unless you are immortal, lifetime is finite.

 

So you are telling me ok, i have 20 years to finish the game, ok whatever, it´s still optimal to pause the exact same number of time, stop bringing that argument.

 

 so you don't need to resort to tactics like kiting or swapping,

 

Yes, you need to do that, to play your best.

If you need to kite enemies in standard mode, you're just playing the game wrong/bad.

 

Yes I need to do that, because that´s the best play, regardless.

 

 In a usual fight you don't need to make adjustments that often, and certainly not over the whole fight.

 

Yes, most humans need to do that if they want to maximize their chance of success.

 

If you consider spending hours of doing the hit and run thing as the best way to play, ok.. but I think only few people had the time and patience for that, especially in HOF mode..

From my experience, the best way to play specifically the IWD games was more like this: fully buff up, then kill as many opponents as you can before your buffs run out, repeat till your spells run out, then rest. No kiting or any other degenerate gameplay strategies needed.

 

I'm not even sure however how the whole thing is related to the discussion. You can just as well kite in a turnbased game to all eternity, if you character is fast enough, just as there could be rtwp games where kiting isn't possible at all, even for people who'd really spend hours on it if possible, because it's the "best" way to play..

 

 

 

Yes, most humans need to do that if they want to maximize their chance of success.

That depends more on the pacing of the game. There is no benefit to make adjustments when there's nothing to react to. 

Edited September 15, 2014 by Iucounu

[Azrael Ultima]

 

Unless you are immortal, lifetime is finite.

So you are telling me ok, i have 20 years to finish the game, ok whatever, it´s still optimal to pause the exact same number of time, stop bringing that argument.

 

You keep forgetting that real time keeps ticking even during pauses. Pausing isn't free, even if there is no in-game cost associated with them, and any time you waste on unnecessary pauses cannot be used for more interesting tasks that do not have to be related to the game.

 

Your model implicitly assumes the player has no interest in anything but playing the game in the most combat efficient manner possible, which is at best absurd.

 

So no, it won't be optimal in any realistic scenario.

[illathid]

Illithad, touche. My "attack" on optimization was poorly elaborated. I should have kept it to min-maxing. In a sense we all try to optimize by making our chars the best that they can be. You proved me wrong.

Eh, wasn't trying to prove you wrong. Educate is maybe a better way to look at it.

 

A lot of people in RPG circles have this idea that making competent characters, or playing the game well, is somehow opposed to role playing (I.e. Roll play v. Role play). I try to enlighten anyone I find who may have those notions.

[Waterd]

If you consider spending hours of doing the hit and run thing as the best way to play, ok.. but I think only few people had the time and patience for that, especially in HOF mode..

 

Stop bringing what people want or not want to do, is irrelevant. We are talking about is optimal play on the definition already discussed, for that what people ¨want, have fun with etc¨ is 100% irrelevant.

 

From my experience, the best way to play specifically the IWD games was more like this: fully buff up, then kill as many opponents as you can before your buffs run out, repeat till your spells run out, then rest. No kiting or any other degenerate gameplay strategies needed.

 

You claim that a player doesn´t kite will be more successfull than one that kites? even if that is true , and your tactic work, then you are implying the game is absolute shallow, if having more information on the game state, do not increase your chances of making better players, is because your play is already capped at 100% chance of sucess, if you can do that, the game is really shallow. 

So I disagree from your appreciation of IWD tactics, but, if what you say is true, then the game is shallower than my wildest expectations. And then it also become pointless for the purposes of designing PoE, since hopefully it won´t be as shallow as you claim IWD2 is.

 

I'm not even sure however how the whole thing is related to the discussion. You can just as well kite in a turnbased game to all eternity, if you character is fast enough, just as there could be rtwp games where kiting isn't possible at all, even for people who'd really spend hours on it if possible, because it's the "best" way to play..

 

 

Sure, if in IWD2 kiting was possible or not is irrelevant to the discussion, I agree. I was just explaining why I think in IWD2 extreme pausing is optimal, and just describing a common iwd2 scenario. It doesn´t have to neccesarily apply in PoE. Though it´s hard to believe still that other complex tactics where changing directions every certain fraction of second isn´t optimal. If people could pause in starcraft2 like in IWD2, I can assure you players would be pausing that often or more.

Even if kiting isn´t viable in PoE for whatever reason it is expected that other tactics that involve lots of pausing will be, unless there is a specific goal to remove micro as much as possible for the game. I could see that as a partial solution to the problem, based on the videos I saw of combat, this is not the case, but do you have any reason to think such work is in progress?

 

That depends more on the pacing of the game. There is no benefit to make adjustments when there's nothing to react to. 

 

Sure, except as i said there are several things to react to on a second, even if the correct reaction is to not do anything at all.

 

 and any time you waste on unnecessary pauses cannot be used for more interesting tasks that do not have to be related to the game.

 

You have so much time, soooo much that you have more than enough time to assign for all the pauses i mention and then to also do all those interesting tasks.

It´s like having a million dollars, and tell me i shouldn´t buy 100 candy because that money could be used to buy a burger, except since i have a million dollar, i can buy both the 100 candy and the burger.

 

Your model implicitly assumes the player has no interest in anything but playing the game in the most combat efficient manner possible, which is at best absurd.

 

When it comes to finding optimal play, yes thats the assumption one has to make. Otherwise you woudl be implying that optimal play is subjective because a game can assign resource to players based on resources from real life and we get into really just crazy territory, and into the territory where designing games is a pointless endeavor. Since designing challenges is pointless since designers are unaware of the resources available to the player. Read again my analogy about designing games where teh amount of crystal you have in starcraft equals the number of total pennies that you have as real life wealth. 

Then your success in starcraft becomes too related to your total amount of wealth your willing to spend in the game.

Similarly you are wanting to connect success in the ingame goal with the amount of free time the player is willing to spend in the game. 

That is really the realm of absurdity.

Edited September 15, 2014 by Waterd

[Iucounu]

 

If you consider spending hours of doing the hit and run thing as the best way to play, ok.. but I think only few people had the time and patience for that, especially in HOF mode..

 

Stop bringing what people want or not want to do, is irrelevant. We are talking about is optimal play on the definition already discussed, for that what people ¨want, have fun with etc¨ is 100% irrelevant.

If you consider it optimal play to spend half an hour to kite a bunch of glibberings, because one of them could critically hit you for 4 damage if you engage them in melee, even if that doesn't matter in the end anyway.. well I think you're blowing that point out of proportions and it's just a petty argument. Although I admit it's my own fault to have participated in it, because I haven't understood your point right.

I guess I can only refer to Infinitron here. The IE games were never some roguelike hardcore survival game, and even if it would be one few people would waste their time using 10 times more tedious tactics only to have like 5% higher chance of survival.

In the end I think it's not necessary for a game (at least IE-like game) to make degenerate tactics like kiting outright impossible, but it's enough to make it unrewarding enough (by for example, making it very tedious) that people won't use it.

 

Sure, if in IWD2 kiting was possible or not is irrelevant to the discussion, I agree. I was just explaining why I think in IWD2 extreme pausing is optimal, and just describing a common iwd2 scenario. It doesn´t have to neccesarily apply in PoE. Though it´s hard to believe still that other complex tactics where changing directions every certain fraction of second isn´t optimal. If people could pause in starcraft2 like in IWD2, I can assure you players would be pausing that often or more.

Changing directions every fraction of a second? I guess if you'd do that, your character would likely just keep standing on the same spot - hardly optimal.

 

 

Sure, except as i said there are several things to react to on a second, even if the correct reaction is to not do anything at all.

That's not my experience. If you try everything to make sure that your characters don't loose a single unnessecary hitpoint and the health distribution of all your characters is optimal and so on, then perhaps... although I still doubt it. 

It's my understanding that in P:E you'll be able to check your opponent's stats and status by the way, so that should already eliminate most of the reasons I was reading from you about the need to make adjustments because of unknown information. 

Edited September 15, 2014 by Iucounu