Sensuki's Suggestions #018: Backer Beta Version Review v278 bb

[IndiraLightfoot]

It doesn't matter as long as they have colorblind mode and the default green.

 

 

 

Sensuki is right, Silent Winter.

 

Also, the marker rings of your party members are double circles. As I am playing through BG:EE right now, I can show you a pic where marker rings perhaps suffer the worse:

 

The worst case is above:

-complex outdoor areas

-Having a party member with red as base colour (the elven sorceress Furia to the left)

-Down in the lower left corner, you have a neutral NPC with a light blue marker ring (compare to that my sorceress Tulippa, with her blue marker ring to the right)

-While the enemies have singe ring markers

-Having a NPC temporarily added to your party (in this case Neera in front of the Amnian mage casting a spell) - and she has red as her base colour

-Also, note how the active Amnian mage has his ring turn into a clover when doing his action.

-And of special note: See that even in BG:EE, marker rings do overlap, although just by a tiny bit.

Edited September 16, 2014 by IndiraLightfoot

[Sensuki]

I hate the colored circles in BGEE it's not because of the color though. It's just the circles look sooooooooooooooooo ugly.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Heh, yeah! They are not exactly aesthetically pleasing. They are but functional.

 

EDIT: The UI in BG:EE really works, though. Kudos to Beamdog for the changes to it. Having the party to the right with action icons on the portraits is very nice, as this leaves the combat log at centre stage, which it probably deserves - that's the only way you see what happens during the game and in-non-combat interactions. Below it, you have the action bar, as it were, which change depending on active character. And that red diamond on it to the left, if I press it, I can have all stuff in a radius being picked up - and then the character doing the fetching actually does walk over to all bodies and collect it (except money, which ka-chings instantly).

Edited September 16, 2014 by IndiraLightfoot

[Sensuki]

Heh, yeah! They are not exactly aesthetically pleasing. They are but functional.

 

EDIT: The UI in BG:EE really works, though. Kudos to Beamdog for the changes to it. Having the party to the right with action icons on the portraits is very nice

I don't like this either PE has this for the Combat HUD, but it's not working as intended atm.

 

KEEP THAT CLUTTER OFF MAH PORTRAITS

[IndiraLightfoot]

Well, introduce a tiny panel, box, circle, whatever, right by your precious portraits, then - as long as we get to keep that perfect function for a party-based CRPG - one glance, and I see what everyone is up to or not. I really like it. Perhaps they should have a symbol for idle as well, like in COH2, but an hourglass.

[Sensuki]

Nah - whatever they do if they add in anything like that it needs to be toggleable on/off.

[Pray]

When do i get sensuki's Path of the Damned Let's Play- backer beta V?

[Silent Winter]

Sensuki is right, Silent Winter.

 

Also, the marker rings of your party members are double circles. As I am playing through BG:EE right now, I can show you a pic where marker rings perhaps suffer the worse:

Ah, different circles - so it's not so confusing then.

Still, I prefer all the same colour for my party.

But OTOH, this might be handy for my all-dwarven-rogue party playthrough.

 

 

Heh, yeah! They are not exactly aesthetically pleasing. They are but functional.

 

EDIT: The UI in BG:EE really works, though. Kudos to Beamdog for the changes to it. Having the party to the right with action icons on the portraits is very nice

I don't like this either PE has this for the Combat HUD, but it's not working as intended atm.

 

KEEP THAT CLUTTER OFF MAH PORTRAITS

^yeahthat

don't mind tiny icons above the portraits though - but it should be togglable as Sensuki said.

 

Edit: forgot the 't' (and biscuits).

Edited September 16, 2014 by Silent Winter

[archangel979]

When do i get sensuki's Path of the Damned Let's Play- backer beta V?

There are No. I to IV?

[Sensuki]

I might be doing a Let's Play of it for the RPGCodex, but more importantly I have a beta preview to write, which I am waiting until probably October to even start thinking about - as then I will have given enough time for Obsidian to show progress, which I can then appraise for the Codexers who haven't got the game yet, and give a fair assessment of how release is shaping up.

[gkathellar]

This is generally very astute, but I do think the issue with combat feeling fast is more complex than you suggest - I've played BG2 with full mage parties and this still feels like I'm pausing more often and spending more time trying to figure out what's going on (even though I have fewer abilities, in many cases). I'm not sure about all of these, but I feel like contributing factors here are:

1. Lack of visual combat feedback - as you say, the IE games are great on this, with the little flinch animations and whatnot.
2. Tracking both health and stamina is hard on the player, and it's something I find myself having to do every single fight.
3. Stamina can go up and down really fast during the course of 10-15 seconds (possibly because attacks basically never miss).
4. The visual indicators on recovery give a player six little bars they're trying to track all at once, which makes for too much pausing. This could be eased with improvements to ...
5. Auto-pause, especially with respect to spells/recovery, is currently just bizarre. "Spell cast" doesn't apply to your own spells (thus allowing you to respond to your character completing an action), but instead to enemy spells, which borders on useless since the spell effect won't even have played out yet. The timed autopause is basically nonsense - it's clearly meant to reflect the "per round" option from IE, but this game doesn't have rounds - it has per-character recovery times, which are already difficult to track.
6. GUI issues - the ability selection buttons are tiny, etc.

[Sensuki]

That's why I suggested to split Health into your Healing Pool and have all damage deal stamina damage only. Sure that's one thing that may contribute to it.

 

I don't like the combat huds and I think they make combat even more confusing - I did forget to talk about those and the spell fx making it even worse.

 

I don't use auto pause, and yes all of the buttons are tiny. The IE games used 40px buttons, and PE uses 40px buttont but screen sizes are like double at least the size from back then.

[archangel979]

As gkathellar said, hit chance seems to great in beta, especially for low level characters. In D&D and IE games characters miss more at lower levels as HP is lower and it only takes few hits to finish a combat. At higher levels it is easier to hit but life is much higher and damage is done through multiple hits. It balances itself out.

 

Here is seems both damage is great and hit chance is great and combat ends very fast.

[Sensuki]

That's what I said in the video and in our paper - the high per-hit damage combined with normalized attack resolutions makes combat feel very fast.

[archangel979]

Do we know how accuracy vs deflect works exactly? Is it 1d100+ Accuracy bonus vs 1d100+Deflection value?

And same accuracy is used vs other 3 defenses,right?

Edited September 16, 2014 by archangel979

[Captain Shrek]

Sensuki, I disagree slightly with your opinion on the speed issue. You are completely right about the speed, but not about how to address it, as *I* see it. I play dota, although not professionally. SO I understand your comparison with that game. But I think that such a comparison is ill founded. My objection would be that PoE is NOT Dota and it should not try to be Dota in the first place. Dota is  a COMPETITIVE game where skill is a requirement to win. You do not play it for the same reason as you play PoE. Maybe those who do want to play IE like games in Dota style would be better off playing Dota or other mobas, instead of trying to shape PoE into Dota. PoE is a single player game and that means that it ought to be played with the restraints of the player skill. If the default setup for skill requirement is too demanding then combat is sure to become a cluster-fark, especially considering that you control a party of 6 unlike in Dota (meepo anyone?). In my opinion, this issue, the combat speed, is right now the worst problem plaguing the gameplay. 

 

I have a feeling that the micromanagement in PoE is also not so much more than IE games. In fact I would contend that potentially NWN2 (not an IE game, I know, but a similar game made by obsidian nonetheless) had more need for micromanagement and more variety. The problem there as is here is that most of the available options were useless asin most encounters you could cheese your way out. The encounters were themselves bland, undead and orcs everywhere (omfg). In this game the general speed of the game enforces certain kinds of repetitive tactics (read "degenerate"). This is due to the base reason that RTwP is potentially counter-productive to heavy micromanagement. A good RTwP game demands fewer options that allow you to actually consider between them in the RT part of RTwP. If you are pausing more often than not, then the best mechanics is TB.

 

But that is a foregone issue. RTwP is here to stay. The only way that this problem could be resolved now is to make combat hard and I mean really hard, all the while slowing down the combat animations. There would be two ways to do that:

 

1) The banal HP laden way with high armor (Which is what the beetles represent)

2) Designing tactical situations and making use of the maps or special abilities of the creeps (like the poisoning from the wood bugs, which is good)

 

The latter is sorely lacking. Instead the game is hard because the fine control over the options is absent. I suggest that the designers should concentrate on the encounter design more than balancing the attributes to resolve it. I suggest better locations and map design; taking a leaf out of the Blackguards book is still an option.

[archangel979]

I don't think they want to make this game as hard as Blackguards. Although I enjoyed it a lot, it is not for average gamers. And game like Blackguards does not work without Turn Based system.

[Sensuki]

random 1-100 + ACC - DEF = score

[Sensuki]

My objection would be that PoE is NOT Dota and it should not try to be Dota in the first place.

Which bit are you talking about here specifically? Adding IAS into the Attribute system? That's something the developers agree on btw.

 

I have a feeling that the micromanagement in PoE is also not so much more than IE games. In fact I would contend that potentially NWN2 (not an IE game, I know, but a similar game made by obsidian nonetheless) had more need for micromanagement and more variety.

Than PE or IE?

 

But that is a foregone issue. RTwP is here to stay. The only way that this problem could be resolved now is to make combat hard and I mean really hard, all the while slowing down the combat animations. There would be two ways to do that:

That would feel really, really terrible IMO

 

Whether you like it or not the unique thing about the Infinity Engine games combat was that it felt like an RTS game. I compare the action speed system in Pillars of Eternity to Warcraft 3 (and DotA because DotA was a Warcraft 3 mod) because the mechanics that govern them are 95% the same. There are only like two differences and that's it.

 

I actually do think that at the moment PE plays more like NWN2. NWN2 had absolutely shockingly bad combat, much like all of the aurora games - NWN1, Jade Empire and the Star Wars KOTOR games. This ship of failure needs to be turned around so it feels more like an RTS again. Then combat will actually feel remotely infinity engine like. One of the first steps there is removing the recovery time pause from movement.

 

I suggest that the designers should concentrate on the encounter design more than balancing the attributes to resolve it. I suggest better locations and map design; taking a leaf out of the Blackguards book is still an option.

Encounter design is very important, yes.

Edited September 16, 2014 by Sensuki

[archangel979]

random 1-100 + ACC - DEF = score

And Score is then compared to some table where it says if it is miss, graze, hit, or critical hit?

[Sensuki]

yep

 

If ACC-DEF = 0 then

 

1-5 = Miss

6-50 = Graze

51-95 = Hit

96-100= Crit

 

Anything below 1 will miss and anything above 100 will crit as well.

Edited September 16, 2014 by Sensuki

[archangel979]

I agree that NWN engines had worse combat than IE games, and that RTS design is the way to go.

But it needs to be noticeable slower than now to work well. OE might be afraid that if it is "too slow" they might turn away new younger players that are used to modern action based RPGs.

Edited September 16, 2014 by archangel979

[Captain Shrek]

 

My objection would be that PoE is NOT Dota and it should not try to be Dota in the first place.

Which bit are you talking about here specifically? Adding IAS into the Attribute system? That's something the developers agree on btw.

 

I have a feeling that the micromanagement in PoE is also not so much more than IE games. In fact I would contend that potentially NWN2 (not an IE game, I know, but a similar game made by obsidian nonetheless) had more need for micromanagement and more variety.

Than PE or IE?

 

But that is a foregone issue. RTwP is here to stay. The only way that this problem could be resolved now is to make combat hard and I mean really hard, all the while slowing down the combat animations. There would be two ways to do that:

That would feel really, really terrible IMO

 

Whether you like it or not the unique thing about the Infinity Engine games combat was that it felt like an RTS game. I compare the action speed system in Pillars of Eternity to Warcraft 3 (and DotA because DotA was a Warcraft 3 mod) because the mechanics that govern them are 95% the same. There are only like two differences and that's it.

 

I actually do think that at the moment PE plays more like NWN2. NWN2 had absolutely shockingly bad combat, much like all of the aurora games - NWN1, Jade Empire and the Star Wars KOTOR games. This ship of failure needs to be turned around so it feels more like an RTS again. Then combat will actually feel remotely infinity engine like. One of the first steps there is removing the recovery time pause from movement.

 

1) What is IAS?

 

2) NWNS variety: Than itself. It was too repetitive. 

 

 

3) Hmm. I did not like the RTS feeling for RPGs in the first place. Neither do I think that IE games played like RTS games either. You yourself pointed out that the animation speeds there were slower. IE was a hybrid if anything between an action RPG (you push a button, something awesome happens) and a RTS (you push a button something awesome might happen, if you played right). PoE right now is more on the action category. 

[archangel979]

yep

 

If ACC-DEF = 0 then

 

1-5 = Miss

6-50 = Graze

51-95 = Hit

96-100= Crit

 

Anything below 1 will miss and anything above 100 will crit as well.

So if Accuracy is 5 more than deflection it is impossible to miss anymore?! And grazes fully implement secondary effects of attacks?

 

They need to change the system into 1d100+accuracy vs 1d100+deflection (or 1d20 instead of 1d100 if those two values are going to be similar through most of the game).

Edited September 16, 2014 by archangel979

[Hiro Protagonist II]

This is generally very astute, but I do think the issue with combat feeling fast is more complex than you suggest - I've played BG2 with full mage parties and this still feels like I'm pausing more often and spending more time trying to figure out what's going on (even though I have fewer abilities, in many cases). I'm not sure about all of these, but I feel like contributing factors here are:

• Lack of visual combat feedback - as you say, the IE games are great on this, with the little flinch animations and whatnot.
• Tracking both health and stamina is hard on the player, and it's something I find myself having to do every single fight.
• Stamina can go up and down really fast during the course of 10-15 seconds (possibly because attacks basically never miss).
• The visual indicators on recovery give a player six little bars they're trying to track all at once, which makes for too much pausing. This could be eased with improvements to ...
• Auto-pause, especially with respect to spells/recovery, is currently just bizarre. "Spell cast" doesn't apply to your own spells (thus allowing you to respond to your character completing an action), but instead to enemy spells, which borders on useless since the spell effect won't even have played out yet. The timed autopause is basically nonsense - it's clearly meant to reflect the "per round" option from IE, but this game doesn't have rounds - it has per-character recovery times, which are already difficult to track.
• GUI issues - the ability selection buttons are tiny, etc.

 

Yep, all good points and combat is a clusterfark at the moment. For me, the major contributing problem is the lack of rounds which contributes to pause spamming with the different recovery times for your characters. It was easier with the IE games because they had rounds. Also, the enemies didn't sprint across the screen and in your face in 1/2 a second. And it looks like Obsidian won't be changing to rounds in the foreseeable future which I think is a mistake. At any rate, that time is well and truly passed.

 

We won't be using a strict round-based system, so the timing of actions will be much more flexible for us to tune. That will help a lot.

It was a design decision made early on before the Kickstarter finished. I would've thought if they were testing the combat, even a year ago when we saw the teaser trailer, they would've noticed there were problems with it. A decision should've been made to introduce rounds like the IE games when they knew they had a problem. Not persist in trying to 'fix' it because in my opinion, I don't think it can be fixed to a degree where it will be like the IE games. They might be able to slow it down, but the lack of rounds is the problem for me. The combat feels like I'm playing an arpg like Diablo, trying to control 6 characters at once, constantly pausing to issue commands and not 100% sure when they have fully recovered to issue a new command.