The problem with binary Melee Engagement in a real-time game - it's not just about the visual feedback

[Matt516]

As to who gets attacked on disengage, the only sensible way to do it would be for whoever is moving to get hit, right? That's how I assumed it was. That said, what Cubiq reported seems like a fairly serious bug. Cubiq, any chance you could get this on video (or at least a screenshot of before/after) and post it in the bug forum? That'd be something that needs to get fixed stat.

[Lephys]

I realize this probably won't be occurring the majority of the time, but... what happens if you're BOTH moving? I mean, what if you decide "to hell with this guy! My people need me elsewhere!", at the same time (not the exact same instant... just "same" enough so that you both are moving at the same time) that your foe decides to move away?

 

I don't know how the game technically deduces who gets a free attack and who doesn't. You know... how the code does it. The code criteria.

[Cubiq]

As to who gets attacked on disengage, the only sensible way to do it would be for whoever is moving to get hit, right? That's how I assumed it was. That said, what Cubiq reported seems like a fairly serious bug. Cubiq, any chance you could get this on video (or at least a screenshot of before/after) and post it in the bug forum? That'd be something that needs to get fixed stat.

Ok i'll try to make some video footage later in the day and post is here before posting to on the bugs forum, to see if anyone knows whether i was doing something wrong.

 

 

 

what happens if you're BOTH moving?

I'll try that with having party members attacking each other and see what happens, though it will probably show wrong if it's bugged.

[Cubiq]

Ok here are the videos.
Before we get in to the videos, I'll just point out a few things:
The Cowled Man is the one with the Hammer in his hand, so you know who I'm talking about.
And the Cowled Woman is the one with what appears to be a musket in her hand. (She tries to melee the wizard every time though.)

I'll also mention that I forgot to level the fighter in the first 2 videos, however the results are always the same. On all of them the fighter has the Defender mode active, so he should be able to engage at least 3 enemies. (he has 18 in Intellect and Perception)
I even have the Hold the line talent on the 3rd and 1st Extra video and you can see it does nothing in this situation.

 

And third. You can see that the enemies are already hostile, before the fireball hits.

This is because there is a bug that once you engage this group of enemies, they will always stay hostile, even if you reload to before you actually attacked them.

 

Here is the first video:

What happens is I used my mouse to attack the Cowled Woman, however because the Cowled Man is near her, my fighter decides to ignore my order and attack the Cowled Man, thus engaging him.
After he runs past, my fighter gets hit by the disengagement attack. (The lag in the hit is pretty huge, I don't know if my fighter could even re-engage the enemy if it worked properly)
Meanwhile this all happens the Cowled Woman passed without even getting engaged, even though she was the main focus of my attack.

 

Second video:

Here I also attacked the Cowled Woman with the musket first. However as the Boar passed, my fighter decided to ignore the order and automatically attacked the Boar as it ran past. I tried to manually attack the Cowled Woman again, however my fighter was recovering from the auto attack he made on the Boar and didn't bother to engage her. As the Cowled Woman got too far, I tried to engage the Cowled Man, and that's when I took the disengagement hit from the Boar, allowing the Cowled Man to pass unhindered.

 

Third video:

This one shows the bug the most.
What I did, is just let the fighter stand in their path and not attack anything.
What happened is the Boar ran past my fighter and then performed a disengagement hit on my fighter, while he was standing still.

 

 

Extra video: These are here just to see some more examples of bugs

Same as the first one. I attacked the Cowled Woman first, my fighter decided to ignore my order and attack the Cowled Man, while the woman ran ahead without any engagements.

 

Extra video 2:

Tried to attack the Cowled Woman again. My fighter decided to attack the Boar first. After that i tried to engage the Cowled Woman again but to no avail. However what did happen was that my Fighter actually managed to engage the Cowled Man on his own, as he ran past him. (It happens very rarely that you can actually engage 2 characters as they pass you)

However it was again my Fighter that got hit by the Cowled Man's disengagement hit
After that the Boar also does the disengagement attack, and then performs another hit on my fighter again for some strange reason, as shown in the log.

You can see the Cowled Woman stop in this video, however this is mainly ecause the AI has failed her.

From what i can tell from testing is that she appears to be trying to use the musket and failing.

 

 

Now you can see in the videos that I only tried this on the same group of enemies.
So after that I went out in to the forest and tried with lions and beetles.
What happened was that as soon as I placed my fighter in their path, they automatically decided to attack him and didn't really try to run past him, to get to the wizard.
They appear to be a bit dumber, so I couldn't test if this happens elsewhere as well.

 

I'll try the simultaneous disengagement between pary members later.
 

Edited October 1, 2014 by Cubiq

[Cubiq]

Ok i can't test the simultaneous disengagement because makeing 2 of your party members attack each other, doesn't cause them to also engage each other.

[Fiebras]

Have you posted this on the bug forums yet?

[Cubiq]

Nope, i wanted people to see here first, and tell me if i screwed something up, since i'm not 100% sure how engagement mechanics work.

Particularly the part where most of the enemies can run past the fighter, without any engagement.

Plus i want to find at least 1 more group of enemies i can try this on.

 

 

EDIT:

Ok i tested this again with the other party near the dragon egg. The same thing happens.

Also from what i've seen it's currently impossible for your party to hit the enemy with a disengagement attack.

I had a Boar chase my wizard and the rest of the party were chasing the Boar, and the only one to make disengagement attacks was the Boar on the wizard.

I'll report this in the bug report thread.

Edited October 1, 2014 by Cubiq

[Lephys]

Good find(s), Cubiq. *thumbs up*

[redneckdevil]

Mmmm to the OP i dunno. Tbh it seems more of a meta thing and seems to let the player know certain things before they should such as ambushes or the sweet spot of agro range.

 

Tbh i think something simple thats toggleable be able to tell the player they are now in combat if they chose to. Maybe something simple such as battle music that can be turned on or off. Comes on as soon as party is in the process of being attacked or starting to attack something. Bam ambiant music turns to something else player knows they in combat. Dont want to know ur in combat, toggle it off and more likely to be ambushed or have less meta knowledge on if ur being attacked or not.

[Lephys]

Mmmm to the OP i dunno. Tbh it seems more of a meta thing and seems to let the player know certain things before they should such as ambushes or the sweet spot of agro range.

You seem to be referring to the general definition of "engagement," as in when you're actually in active conflict with an enemy. The engagement being referenced in this thread is the actual Melee Engagement mechanic, which is a relationship within combat between two given characters/entities.

[Hormalakh]

the developers need to consider mechanics that fit a REAL-TIME game where players are focusing on several things going on at once. This means that disengagement should be
1- visible, you should be able to tell immediately that you want to disengage and that you are taking a risk; your disengagement should be notifiable even before it occurs
2- deliberate, you shouldn't accidentally click too far out of the area of engagement and suddenly get hit with free attacks. Like an "escape" ability, you should be well-aware of what you're doing
3- real-time, if this is a real-time game, then you should have the opportunity to cancel a disengagement in real-time.

There have to be solutions offered that make these considerations. Here are two ways I can imagine that can make disengagement more applicable in a real-time environment.

1- Allow AoO areas to be small when initially engaging so that they are only enabled when it is near-deliberate that the player wanted that character nearby the enemy. Then make disengagement areas significantly larger, so that small adjustments +/- error in clicking/path-finding would not trigger engagement attacks.
2- Make it quite obvious that a character will disengage when making choices. This would have to be real-time information, so we can't have "pause when disengaging" as the only option for something so significant. You need a different mouse icon when clicking further out, a red highlight, or something else that's fairly obvious that tells the player immediately that they are going out of engagement.

Then perhaps you might want to put in a "slow" effect when players are exiting engagement areas. Even a 80% speed that immediately notifies the player, "oh man I've deliberately disengaged, if I'm sure, I can watch what happens or I can quickly readjust." This would be a real-time mechanic.

 

A fellow poster on the Codex also made a great suggestion:

 

 

Suggestion: apply lock, but give all characters the ability to disengage (free AA from opponent). Some classes get to disengage for free via abilities or get to apply their own AA upon disengage etc.

 

hattip Grunker

[Lephys]

Only other thing I can think of is to make engagement simply a status, instead of purely location-based. Basically, Foe A would have an engagement radius, based on whatever factors you want (however it's already done, etc.). But, simply stepping into it wouldn't trigger engagement (unless maybe that foe was idle/standing still? In which case, still, a mouse-over or something should show you where not-to-step). But, if two people were just crossing paths, they shouldn't automatically stop and engage. That doesn't make any sense, since both of their goals are destinations away from each other (i.e. "I'm running over here to heal an ally, and you're running over there to get my guy off your Wizard.").

 

Anywho, once you're in melee engagement, you cannot move outside of the engagement radius without first disengaging. It's not a "once I cross that line, it all happens so fast!". No, it's a "Okay, I want to break engagenent, and then I'm obviously not going to stick around inside this bloody circle!"

 

The system doesn't need to care when you cross the line, because you're never going to intentionally leave the circle while simultaneously expecting to not disengage.

 

So, yeah, active disengagement. It's already there with the "escape" type abilities (grimoire slam, Rogue's "Escape," etc.). Why not just make that the standard? Those abilities don't warrant an AoO, but simply disengaging does. You could even still have double-click (or shift-click, or whatever click modifier you want) automatically break disengagement AND issue a move command somewhere. Except, you know the second you double-click that you'll get AoO'd, and not be worried about when you step across a cursed radius.

 

Now, with initial engagement, I'm not really sure how to treat that one. You can't really just wait 'til someone's okay with it to let an enemy engage them. So, I think you just need to very clearly indicate when engagement is going to occur/where the engagement radii are. Another thing there is, if Foe A is currently engaged with its maximum number of targets, you no longer need to broadcast the engagement radius until it becomes disengaged, because no one needs to fear engaging with it, anyway.

 

Another little tidbit -- there's no reason to allow engagement until an attack can actually be made. Best example: If you JUST attacked, and disengaged, you shouldn't be able to immediately engage someone else who happens to be roaming into your circle, because you still have a whole recovery bar before you can even do anything. Nothing you're doing yet warrants "engagement," since you're incapable of acting, yet.

 

But, yeah, there definitely shouldn't be any "oops, I stepped one pixel too close to you, then immediately left your circle because I just wanted to keep running... I just got AoO'd!" It should be, "Okay, I definitely shouldn't try to get too close to that guy, lest he stop me in my tracks. If I do engage him, I'll have to manually choose to take an extra hit and flee, if I want to not stand there and fight him to death."

[Cubiq]

Gonna have to write a massive post for this, so i'll try to be very short and just hit the points you guys made. (Hope you guys play beta since i'm going to talk like you know what i'm talking about. If not, tell me and i'll try to explain my points more clearly.)

 

@Hormalakh

3- real-time, if this is a real-time game, then you should have the opportunity to cancel a disengagement in real-time.

Suggestion: apply lock, but give all characters the ability to disengage (free AA from opponent). Some classes get to disengage for free via abilities or get to apply their own AA upon disengage etc.

I'm not sure i want this, because of so many abilities you already have high maintenance, having extra ability button to move most of the time, will really drive me up the wall.

 

Then perhaps you might want to put in a "slow" effect when players are exiting engagement areas. Even a 80% speed that immediately notifies the player, "oh man I've deliberately disengaged, if I'm sure, I can watch what happens or I can quickly readjust." This would be a real-time mechanic.

This is a very good smoother approach, however it's still going to add extra annoyance (to me at lest), when you're bashing low level monsters.

If you try to fight beetles in beta as a level 8 character with collected gear, you can pretty much keep running around with your fighter, eating disengagement attacks, and you will see he takes very very very little damage.

There's also the issue of trying to disengage several times, for example you move out to help one of your party memebers, the combat slows down, and you decide to continue walking away. Your character gets hit as a result, staggers, and the enemy engages you again, now you need to move out again and combat slows down again, etc.

 

2- Make it quite obvious that a character will disengage when making choices. This would have to be real-time information, so we can't have "pause when disengaging" as the only option for something so significant. You need a different mouse icon when clicking further out, a red highlight, or something else that's fairly obvious that tells the player immediately that they are going out of engagement.

The mouse highlight i'm happy with, but it's not going to help much since most of the time it's the pathing AI that screws you, when you click close by and your character decides to go all around everyone, and gets murdered by disengagement attacks. Problem is that fixing the pathing AI also won't help much since you sometimes can't tell whether or not, he will be able to squeeze through a certain gap and whether or not he will be able to move so close to the wall, etc. causing him to just go around the other way.

 

1- Allow AoO areas to be small when initially engaging so that they are only enabled when it is near-deliberate that the player wanted that character nearby the enemy. Then make disengagement areas significantly larger, so that small adjustments +/- error in clicking/path-finding would not trigger engagement attacks.

This is going to be an issue, because you need the fleeing character to be very close, as Obsidian designed the engagement mechanic so that the pursuer can re-engage the target if they failed the concentration check and stagger when they get hit.

If you look at the videos i posted above, even though it's the wrong person that get's hit, you will see that the distance before the engagement hit actually happens is already very large.

I don't know if this is due to a simple bug, engine limitation, or if they need to greatly improve the code, so that the position refresh rate of each character is grately increased.

If it's the latter then increasing the disengagement distance will cause the mechanic to work even worse, as i really don't think they will be able to code it so well it will work very reactively.

 

 

 

 

@Lephys

Only other thing I can think of is to make engagement simply a status, instead of purely location-based. Basically, Foe A would have an engagement radius, based on whatever factors you want (however it's already done, etc.). But, simply stepping into it wouldn't trigger engagement (unless maybe that foe was idle/standing still? In which case, still, a mouse-over or something should show you where not-to-step). But, if two people were just crossing paths, they shouldn't automatically stop and engage. That doesn't make any sense, since both of their goals are destinations away from each other (i.e. "I'm running over here to heal an ally, and you're running over there to get my guy off your Wizard.").

This is a huge problem.

The biggest point of the engagement mechanic was so that it would be easier for the melee to "hold the line".

(I'm actually really against the engagement mechanics as a whole, since i found i could hold the line pretty well in IE games if you position correctly, and you would very very rarely get punished for it.)

However if you remove the melee's ability to engage several people as they pass by you will end up with your back characters getting killed very easily.

If your fighter runs up to intercept the pursuers, like i did in the videos above, and only manages to stop 1 enemy, then he will have to eat a disengagement hit, just to go help one party member in the back, since they can't hold vs a melee on their own. They can't use their escape abilities, because it will do them no good, if your fighter isn't near to stop or pick up the pursuer, as the enemy will easily reach your party member again on his own.

(Yes, some escape abilities will cause them to lose the target, however they will most likely target the next weak party member, since they will be nearer.)

 

 

So, yeah, active disengagement. It's already there with the "escape" type abilities (grimoire slam, Rogue's "Escape," etc.). Why not just make that the standard? Those abilities don't warrant an AoO, but simply disengaging does. You could even still have double-click (or shift-click, or whatever click modifier you want) automatically break disengagement AND issue a move command somewhere. Except, you know the second you double-click that you'll get AoO'd, and not be worried about when you step across a cursed radius.

Well like i said above, having extra ability buttons for movement is really something i think the game shouldn't have, the maintenance is already pretty high in beta.

If you want to implement this, then i really think something else should be removed.

 

 

 

 

I'm no against fixing the mehcanic, i'm just really not fond of the idea "extra action to move", since if it fails you need to keep repeating it.

Edited October 8, 2014 by Cubiq

[Cubiq]

can't edit my post
 

 

I'm no against fixing the mehcanic, i'm just really not fond of the idea "extra action to move", since if it fails you need to keep repeating it.

 

I'm not against fixing the mechanic,

[Hormalakh]

Any thoughts on solving the problem cubiq? I see a lot of disagreements, valid as they might be, but no real solutions.

[Lephys]

This is a huge problem.

The biggest point of the engagement mechanic was so that it would be easier for the melee to "hold the line".

(I'm actually really against the engagement mechanics as a whole, since i found i could hold the line pretty well in IE games if you position correctly, and you would very very rarely get punished for it.)

However if you remove the melee's ability to engage several people as they pass by you will end up with your back characters getting killed very easily.

I may not have been clear enough. The fighter should still be able to engage up to 3 people. But, if the Fighter's just been commanded to run to a point 80-yards across the battlefield, and other people have been commanded to run to a point on the other side of the fighter, everyone shouldn't all suffer disengagement attacks from simply passing one another. They aren't even stopping, or attempting conflict in any way, shape, or fashion.

 

"Instant" disengagement attacks are fine. I get that. I'm not trying to say "That doesn't simulate actually having to attack someone that's running past you!" What I'm saying is, that doesn't make any sense from the purpose/context of the engagement system. The point of it is so that, if one guy's all "COME AT ME, BRO!" and ready to fight you, you can't simply go "Nah!" and run away from him, THROUGH his melee proximity, without any sort of penalty.

 

The other thing is... in that particular scenario, how the hell do you even tell WHO was engaging WHOM? If it's your Fighter running across the battlefield, and three goblins running back the other way, past him, does he suffer 3 disengagement attacks for disengaging from each one of them, while they each suffer 1 for disengaging from him?

 

Annnnywho, to further clarify, take the same scenario, but imagine that your Fighter was told to attack-move. Or was told to run out to a point halfway and stop, or you see the three goblins running toward him, and you select him and just press the "stop" button... take your pick. Well, NOW they're simply trying to move through his engagement area (I'm just gonna call that the Danger Zone from now on), while he's totally prepared for some can-openin'. SO, they'd all both stop AND become engaged by him. Or, the opposite would occur, if he was the one trying to just run past them, and they stopped and/or directly pursued/targeted him with an attack command.

 

Now, as for the extra button/command/what-have-you for disengagement... I know it's not ideal, in isolation, to have one more thing you have to actively order, but I don't really know of any better way to do it. If you don't have that, then stuff starts making a whole lot of no-sense again. First of all, how do you keep up with who's disengaging? If Fighter Steve is engaged with a goblin, and they both happen to have the same Danger Zone radius, and the goblin just decides to run away, then, when he crosses the Danger Zone threshold of Fighter Steve, Steve is simultaneously "leaving" the goblin's Danger Zone.

 

Maybe you just say "Well, STEVE engaged the GOBLIN, so... Steve can leave at-will and be fine, and only the GOBLIN is susceptible to an AoO." But then, what if the goblin knocks Steve down or something? And why should Steve be able to simply turn his back on the goblin without penalty, while the goblin has to watch itself, JUST because of who technically engaged whom? Questions like that crop up.

 

So, like I said, when you use Get Out Of Danger Zone Free cards (disengagement abilities like Grimoire Slam and Escape), you're actively disengaging, just without penalty. So, it's not that much of a stretch to have ot actively disengage even when you're doing so with an AoO occurring. Also, I mentioned that it doesn't have to be some other button you have to press. It could just be a move double-click, which is easy enough. "Oh, I stickied to some enemy, even though I was trying to move across the battlefield? Well, I don't care if he hits me for free, 'cause I have URGENT BUSINESS elsewhere! *double-click*". It's not exactly a huge hindrance.

 

That, and the question remains: How the hell are you supposed to move around within someone's Danger Zone without disengaging? Very, very carefully? I don't think the trouble of having to actively disengage really warrants the complete neglect of the very real possibility of moving around within a Danger Zone radius without disengaging (easily). Just watching radii indicators and having to manually ensure that your character never leaves that circle as you move them does not seem like a very effective system.

 

Lastly, as far as engagement indication goes... what if there were a simple animation that played at the moment of engagement? A simple "lock-blades"-for-a-moment animation? That's how you'd know, intuitively, that you were engaged, and with whom. You stop, that goblin stops, "ting." Especially if no other ability/attack uses that same animation, it would be very distinct. Dunno how easy that is to add/do, or if it is, indeed, unique. If not, then maybe something similar. OH, and if engagement was more of a status, like I'm proposing, instead of just a location-based happenstancical condition, then two engaged entities could be made to move about while always facing one another. Another very intuitive visual indicator of who is and isn't engaged, and with whom. "When I move Fighter Steve, he appears to be circling that spider, and the spider's always facing him. Clearly, they are engaged."

 

I'm no against fixing the mehcanic, i'm just really not fond of the idea "extra action to move", since if it fails you need to keep repeating it.

I'm confused, here. I think you might have misunderstood me on yet another facet. In my proposal, it would never fail. If you decide "I'm going to get the hell away from this guy," you take an AoO. No "but wait, I'm dancing around the threshold of his Danger Zone... WILL I cross it? Find out on the next episode of... MELEE DISENGAGEMENT!" Just "Yes, hit me because I don't want to be stuck to you anymore."

 

The thing is, Josh's initial description of the system (in the initial update that presented it) was that it was sort of a "sticky" system. But, all it really does is stop you ONE TIME, then the whole disengagement process is a purely-location-based mess. Oh, you can just move regularly after you stop that one time? Well, what if you don't WANT to disengage, but you want to move a bit?

 

*shrug* I know it's not perfect, but, like I said, active disengagement seems to come with an awful lot of benefits.

 

The only thing I don't really have ironed out is exactly how to handle re-engagement after someone's disengaged (specifically in regards to active pursuit). If it's "did they leave your Danger Zone circle? Then they've disengaged," then you can just have re-engagement occur when you catch up to them and they cross back into your circle. But, if they can disengage INSIDE your circle, then there'd need to be something akin to a cooldown/recovery on the ability to re-engage them. Otherwise it would always instantly occur because they'd be inside your Danger Zone already. *shrug* That could get complex, I suppose. Suggestions are beyond welcome.

[Cubiq]

Ok before we go to in to whole "what makes sense and what doesn't" i'll just point out that i know it doesn't make sense. I don't actually even like the mechanic, so you have to take it up with Josh on that one. I'm just trying to explain, on what Josh was trying to do with this mechanic, since it's so buggy you can't actually tell just from the videos.

 

The other thing is... in that particular scenario, how the hell do you even tell WHO was engaging WHOM? If it's your Fighter running across the battlefield, and three goblins running back the other way, past him, does he suffer 3 disengagement attacks for disengaging from each one of them, while they each suffer 1 for disengaging from him?

In this scenario no one will suffer disengagement attacks.

For you to do a disengagement attack on the enemy you need to stand still.

So if your fighter was standing still and the 3 goblins ran past him he would hit them (or at least he should be able to if it wasn't so bugged), with the current mechanic.

If 1 goblin was standing still and the other 2 ran past the fighter and the fighter was also running past them them, then only the single goblin that was standing still will hit your fighter.

 

Maybe you just say "Well, STEVE engaged the GOBLIN, so... Steve can leave at-will and be fine, and only the GOBLIN is susceptible to an AoO." But then, what if the goblin knocks Steve down or something? And why should Steve be able to simply turn his back on the goblin without penalty, while the goblin has to watch itself, JUST because of who technically engaged whom? Questions like that crop up.

 

I'm not exactly sure what you mean?

I'll just point out again that the videos i posted before are showing a lot of bugs, so you shouldn't take them as an example of what was actually intended with the engage mechanic.

If Steve and the goblin will be fighting, they will both be engaging each other. The reason is because both are standing still.

Here's a different situation:

Your fighter is fighting 4 goblins, and has a defensive mode ability active, which allows him to engage 3 enemies; then the 4 goblins can engage the fighter, however the fighter can engage only 3 goblins. (the engagement doesn't happen both ways, it's a 1 way mechanic, so 1 character can engage the other character, but the other won't necessarily engage the first one if the conditions aren't met, like standing still, or able to engage more enemies, etc.)

So this means if any of the 3 goblins that the fighter has engaged, try to leave the engagement circle of the fighter, then they will get hit by a disengagement attack. HOWEVER, the 4th goblin, who the fighter has not engage (since he can only engage maximum of 3 enemies) tries to leave, then he will be able to get away without getting hit, even though he is also attacking the fighter.

But if the fighter tries to run away, he will get hit by all 4 goblins.

 

As for the knockdown mechanic, it works like this:

If 1 of the goblins knocks down the fighter, then all 4 goblins can run away without getting hit, while he is on the ground.

 

 

 

That, and the question remains: How the hell are you supposed to move around within someone's Danger Zone without disengaging? Very, very carefully? I don't think the trouble of having to actively disengage really warrants the complete neglect of the very real possibility of moving around within a Danger Zone radius without disengaging (easily). Just watching radii indicators and having to manually ensure that your character never leaves that circle as you move them does not seem like a very effective system

Yes, sadly "very carefully", this is Joshe's plan atm. (i know, it's ****) But you don't even have to worry about that, because, if you are engaged with more than 1 opponent (which is most of the time) then you can't move at all, because trying to circle around 1 character, will cause you to get a disengagement hit from the other.

It's a mess 1 way or another.

 

 

 

I'm confused, here. I think you might have misunderstood me on yet another facet. In my proposal, it would never fail.

The thing is, Josh's initial description of the system (in the initial update that presented it) was that it was sort of a "sticky" system. But, all it really does is stop you ONE TIME, then the whole disengagement process is a purely-location-based mess. Oh, you can just move regularly after you stop that one time? Well, what if you don't WANT to disengage, but you want to move a bit?

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this.

Well it is sort of a "stick" system. I'm not sure how it works vs multiple opponents, as i haven't tested it yet, however versus a single opponent it works like this:

If you try to leave the disengagement circle, you will get hit by a disengagement attack. This attack does a check versus your Concentration, to see if this will cause you to perform a "stagger" animation, which will temporarily force you to stand in still. If you fail the check, then the pursuer has enough time to move after you and engage you again, which will cause your character to completely stop again. Now you have to order your character to try to disengage again, get hit by a disengagement hit again and hope that the concentration check will win this time, for you to get away. You will keep getting re-engaged until you make a successful concentration check, if you don't use any escape abilities.

This is what i mean when i said your disengagement can fail.

Escape abilities like the Barbarian's Sprint, can ignore the "stagger" check; however you still get hit.

 

If i understand correctly, you would like to give everyone a disengagement button that would work like the Barbarian's Sprint, which can ignore the concentration check, when moving away?

 

 

 

@Hormalakh

Any thoughts on solving the problem cubiq? I see a lot of disagreements, valid as they might be, but no real solutions.

My solution is to scrap the whole engagement mechanic, since it's clearly going to be massively buggy. But i'm sure no one wants to talk about that.

The NWN series had the same thing, with exactly the same problems. Sometimes when you try to run around your opponent, you would get hit instantly by 2-4 attacks of opportunity, because the position checking was buggy, and your pathing AI would screw it up.

I was against the idea the first time Josh mentioned, however no one really listened, so i'm not even going to bother with that argument anymore.

It's fine if you post your suggestions, i'm just telling you what i think would cause problems, based on my personal experience with the beta.

Edited October 9, 2014 by Cubiq

[Lephys]

@Cubiq:

 

I appreciate the response. I didn't know the exact specifics of the current engagement system, because I haven't gotten to mess with it much.

 

Seems like if it were working like it's supposed to, it wouldn't be too bad. It still just seems like it should be more intuitive when you're actually disengaging and when you aren't.

 

To clarify, what I mean by the term "disengaging" is simply "the leaving of the engagement status, whether or not an AoO is provoked." In other words, if you never disengaged, you would simply remain engaged forever. I guess I should clarify by saying that I'm talking about ending engagement via movement, and not via killing your foe, or anything else that technically makes engagement no longer sustainable between two characters in a battle.

 

So, okay, couple more clarifications... when I asked about Fighter Steve engaging the goblin, then the goblin knocking Steve down, I meant to say "what if the goblin knocked Steve back?" Because, then, the Goblin wouldn't be moving, but Steve would. So he would cross the threshold and disengage. Does he provoke an AoO WHILE he's already in the midst of being attacked? That doesn't seem to make any sense (and not from a simulation standpoint, but from a context of this combat system standpoint). The purpose of the system seems to be to allow melee combat to not just be something you can easily waltz past and constantly avoid via simple movement. An AoO every time you knocked someone out of your own circle would just be free bonus damage on your attack. You JUST swung your weapon, and that person is falling down, away from you, and somehow you get a free, immediate attack on them? Even though they didn't gain any advantage, because they're being involuntarily knocked down.

 

I know that's just one situation. The only other remaining issue I have is that it feels like it should be a lot more intuitive, knowing when you're going to engage someone when you're trying to run someone across the field. It's just an ideal, really. And this is simply me wondering "is there a better way to do that?" I'm not saying you simply can't play the game if you don't intuitively know where to move someone without engaging stationary foes. I mean, I would assume no one's melee engagement radius (Danger Zone) is like 30 meters. I'd imagine they're pretty small, or they wouldn't be "melee" anymore.

 

On that note, do they vary in size? I remember one of the earlier design descriptions being that they did, but I don't know if that made it into the actual game. Because, in that case, someone with a polearm or something would be expected to have a larger radius than someone with, say, a dagger.

 

Annnywho... Yeah, I was only proposing the actual-sticky mechanic (move only within currently-engaged radii until you choose to do otherwise) as a way of making it a lot easier to move while engaged (which the current system already allows you to do, right?, so the intent can't be "YOU AREN'T SUPPOSED TO MOVE AT ALL WHILE ENGAGED!") without disengaging.

 

*shrug*

[Cubiq]

So, okay, couple more clarifications... when I asked about Fighter Steve engaging the goblin, then the goblin knocking Steve down, I meant to say "what if the goblin knocked Steve back?" Because, then, the Goblin wouldn't be moving, but Steve would. So he would cross the threshold and disengage. Does he provoke an AoO WHILE he's already in the midst of being attacked?

That's actually a good question, i'll have to try that when i have the time, however it's curretly so bugged i don't know if the results will be correct.

 

On that note, do they vary in size?

Yes, i don't know about polearms, but the fighter's defender mode will increase the engagement circle (danger zone) of the fighter, allowing him to engage enemies from further away. However i don't know how this affects the distance of the disengagement attack. Will this allow the enemy to have more freedom in moving around the fighter or not? It's hard to test because the enemy barely moves around and the bugs cause the disengagement attack to lag and land something like 5 meters away if the enemy is moving away.

You can see it in the first video i posted, where my figher makes the animation of getting hit, which was cause by the boar many meters away. (I'll point out again that that's bugged, it should have been the boar that got hit not my fighter.)

 

 

 

Annnywho... Yeah, I was only proposing the actual-sticky mechanic (move only within currently-engaged radii until you choose to do otherwise) as a way of making it a lot easier to move while engaged (which the current system already allows you to do, right?, so the intent can't be "YOU AREN'T SUPPOSED TO MOVE AT ALL WHILE ENGAGED!") without disengaging.

Yes now that i think about it a Shift+Left_mouse_click for safe moving wouldn't be so bad, if it worked the other way around.

If they made it so that if you click normally you would move normally, however if you shift+click, your character would only try to move within the opponent's engagement circle (danger zone).

This is actually something i would be happy with, since it's fast and doesn't delay normal moving mechanics.

(How well this will work is a different question though, because of possible bugged pathing AI)

[Lephys]

Yes now that i think about it a Shift+Left_mouse_click for safe moving wouldn't be so bad, if it worked the other way around.

Didn't even think about that, heh. Just reversing it.

 

And yeah, I dunno exactly how well it will work with the current state of things. I'm just sort of rough-drafting things in terms of design goals, here.

 

If they get it de-bugged, the current system is fine. It's not the end of the world if it doesn't change. But, there are a few things that aren't really ideal about it. Anticipating/gauging engagement/disengagement is probably one of the most difficult things in active combat gameplay, at the moment. Of course, again, that's WITH the bugs.

 

Really, the most important thing is intuitive feedback regarding this. I still think a unique, quick animation, and/or some other indicator would be a good idea to show exactly when someone's getting engaged by someone else. Stopping's good and all, but plenty of things stop you in the chaos of battle.

[Cubiq]

Ooookey...

I did some more testing and found out that once you get engaged, you can't move safely at all.

If you move even a millimeter you will get hit by a disengagement attack, no matter if you are trying to move closer or further away.

It's like this vs all enemies.

 

Sensuki says that it wasn't like this in the previous beta version, so maybe it's a bug.

Edited October 12, 2014 by Cubiq

[Cubiq]

I'll stop highjacking this thread with this last post

I just need to point out i made a mistake when i wrote this:

 

The other thing is... in that particular scenario, how the hell do you even tell WHO was engaging WHOM? If it's your Fighter running across the battlefield, and three goblins running back the other way, past him, does he suffer 3 disengagement attacks for disengaging from each one of them, while they each suffer 1 for disengaging from him?

In this scenario no one will suffer disengagement attacks.

For you to do a disengagement attack on the enemy you need to stand still.

So if your fighter was standing still and the 3 goblins ran past him he would hit them (or at least he should be able to if it wasn't so bugged), with the current mechanic.

If 1 goblin was standing still and the other 2 ran past the fighter and the fighter was also running past them them, then only the single goblin that was standing still will hit your fighter.

 

The mechanics are currently so screwed up, i have no idea what was even intended with this anymore.

When the bugs get fixed, you probably will not be able to pass each other in this scenario, without an engagement, even if everyone is moving.

I found out that you NEED to have a mechanic where you can engage someone while you are moving so that you can actually catch up to someone that is fleeing. (The "sticky" mechanic)

As shown in the example here:

 

What they probably need to do, is just not allow disengagement attacks while moving.

Edited October 12, 2014 by Cubiq

[Lephys]

Nah, you're not hijacking the thread. Just providing info useful to the discussion, .

 

The main thing, I suppose, is that, whatever's intended needs to be accomplished. Now, I sincerely hope that we'll be allowed to move at least some while still engaged. I kinda thought that was the point of engagement radii not just being like... the length of a character's forearm.

 

That, and it's a simulation at-heart. In general, it's simulating the fact that you can't simply jog away from someone who's actively fighting you with a sword and shield, and get away scott free, guaranteed. So, IF it's intended that any-and-all movement invokes an AoO, well... I believe that's a bit counter-productive. The "problem" was with the Fighter's ability to do something significant in battle that others couldn't. Namely, actually "tie up" enemies in melee combat. Three instead of one. And that, in most games, everyone can kind of just jog past, if they really want to. Sure, they'll get attacked, but that's about it.

 

So, it seems like the rules of engagement really need to reflect that idea, and not more than that idea. Being locked into place just because someone's within a certain range of you is a bit overly restrictive, and goes beyond the idea that just, if a Fighter runs out to meet you in melee combat, you're going to have to do a lot more to deal with him than just run-on-past and take one free hit.

 

*shrug*. Maybe we'll get an update on this? Obviously there are some bugs at the moment, regardless of whatever the current goal of the system is.

[Cubiq]

I agree that they should perhaps look for other alternatives to the engagement mechanic over just nailing everyone to the ground as soon as they get engaged, however i feel that it's too late in development for that. One can only hope it's not.

Maybe they can just make disengagement hits less punishing?

I think i remember getting hit once by a 64 damage disengagement crit, which just makes you think: "Let's not try to move during combat ever again"

[Lephys]

I'm with you in hoping it's not too late. I'm no expert, but it seems like it wouldn't be detrimentally difficult to adjust the mechanic a little. Basically, change when/how the trigger for disengagement works, instead of it being "YOU MOVED AT ALL!".

 

Really, 1 of 2 things needs to happen:

 

1) all engagement circles should be the exact same size (same distance from the edge of the actual character/entity model), so that engagement/disengagement always happens "at arm's length."

 

2) Movement should be allowed within an engagement radius without incurring disengagement, and it should be intuitive/easy to issue the "I want you to move a little, but not beyond this circle" without a bunch of "Move just a little to the OH NO YOU MOVED A PIXEL TOO FAR AND GOT HIT!"