How to fix combat? It's still the big offender in the BB.

[Sensuki]

Yeah that happens to me too, I haven't yet made a bug report for it yet, but if you already haven't I will now

[Hiro Protagonist II]

I'm not reporting bugs anymore until closer to release date. Obsidian Q&A would no doubt know about it anyway.

 

Oh and another bug I found quite funny when I booted up that old save.

 

 

 

First screen shot shows I killed two Ivory Spinner Spiders with my Druid. Oh yes, Druids are OP.

 

 

Second screen shot shows the Crystal Eater Spider is getting stuck by the dead Ivory Spinner's AoE's. haha.

 

 

 

 

 

And you can have enemies fight each other and get xp for it. And your bestiary pages are updated while I'm on the other side of the dungeon. LOL.

 

 

 

 

Edited October 27, 2014 by Hiro Protagonist II

[archangel979]

I 100% agree with Sensuki, there should be no place of AoO in real time party based, it bugged me very much in NWN2.

It feels very clunky and chaotic. 

I don't know, maybe making it as active ability for fighters (Engage Stance?) would be better idea, as they seem to be the tanking class.

I for sure wouldn't be crying if they will get rid of it entirely.

In 3.5e AoO also had the purpose of giving a penalty to ranged attackers and spellcasters once a melee enemy is in their face like it would be in real life. But in IE games, melee got a +4 attack bonus vs ranged and ranged got -4 penalty to hit vs enemies in their face so that is how it was balanced. Spellcasters spells got almost always canceled if melee hit them.

 

Removing melee engagement would ask for some of these things to be brought back to balance ranged and casters vs melee.

[Sensuki]

I'm not sure it would be completely necessary because you are already at a disadvantage in those situations, and Wizards and Ranged users tend to have low Endurance anyway. I've found that if you get a melee character up to a caster or a ranged character in the first place, that unit is dead.

 

Ranged units also have a penalty to recovery time when moving now as well. If you just previously used a ranged attack and you move, your recovery time is longer. Not sure if the recovery time is only longer when moving or whether it's longer for the duration of the recovery - haven't checked the logic.

Edited October 27, 2014 by Sensuki

[Doppelschwert]

By now, I seriously hate the quote mechanics in this forum. I'll just snip out some stuff of your post, give it a number and adress it below.
 

 

Point #1

Did you read my previous posts in the thread? The Enemy AI is completely manipulable. If you have two characters guarding a corridor and there is a gap, no enemy is going to get through because they will attack your characters at the front of the corridor due to the AI targeting clauses. You need to PAY ATTENTION to who the enemies are targeting.

Here is a glorious mspaint demonstration
 
 

Point #2

I have to ask you, when was the last time you played an Infinity Engine game? What do you do when your melee characters are nearly killed for whatever reason - let's say they got Held and nearly killed from automatic hits, your Cleric cast Remove Paralysis and they are now not stunned, but on a few HP - what do you do? You have two choices - let them die, or move them away. In the IE games, you micro them away from the enemies and make them quaff a potion, or get the Priest to queue up another healing spell etc etc

In Pillars of Eternity you can't move a character away from melee combat when they are on the brink of death - they will die from a disengagement attack. Disengagement attacks eliminate something which is the bread and butter of in-combat unit movement in any game with RTS style gameplay whether that be an Infinity Engine RPG, an RTS game, or even a MOBA. 

In fact, not only does it make trying to move your character away from combat a bad choice, but it also makes the fact that you cast Remove Paralysis a bad choice, because they can't move away from combat anyway - that is a load of garbage in my opinion.
 

Point #3

 
This doesn't make sense. Enemies won't disengage ever, the only disengagement attacks you will ever score will be from your own spells causing enemies to disengage. You already have 'the power to engage' without engagement due to the way the AI targeting clauses work. All the Engagement system does is give the player a penalty from trying to move characters in melee away from melee combat. That is literally it.
 

Point #4

 
It's supposed to be a no brainer, that is what you are supposed to do when your characters get low - move them away from combat. It is up to the enemy AI to try and stop you from doing it, such as casting disables and crowd control spells making it difficult. Enemy Fighters could be scripted to cast their Knock Down spell when a character they are attacking is reduced below 25% health - that would make it tough to get away, providing they hit.

There is no need for some retarded automatic system to punish you for making the best tactical decision. Like wtf is that?
 

Point #5

 
In that case it seems like you're arguing just for the sake of it. You wouldn't play any differently whether or not there was an engagement system.

edit: I also play games the way that is fun for me. I don't rest spam or do anything insanely cheesy when I play the Infinity Engine games, and I have a whole Icewind Dale LP to prove it. But I do understand how the enemy targeting works and use that information to position and move my characters optimally in combat. 
 

Point #6

 
You might believe it, but I don't think it would be true, especially considering your last statement. I honestly don't think it would affect how you play the game - especially if you never thought to micro characters back before.

 

1) Ask yourself this question:

Assume the roles are swapped and you control the right party trying to get the backline of the left party. If the AI would try to block you like this, would you change your target to the blocking unit or would you just go around the enemy and hit the back row anyway?

If you wouldn't change your target but just go around the enemy to the backline anyway, as there is no penatly for doing so, then you just argued that the AI of the IE games is exploitable and stupid. In the same situation, with a disengagement mechanic, you probably wouldn't just jogg past them because you get hit in the face, making your behaviour more similiar to the AI, but for a proper reason.

 

2) I have to ask you again as well, why can't you do this just some time before you are actually at the brink of death? What's pretending you doing the same maneuver at 20% of HP instead of at 5% of HP? It's way harder to back up with the disengagement mechanic, because you have to anticipate just how much damage you will take until you moved away (Will you take a crit? can you survive another attack while still being able to back away? That is risk vs. reward decision making).

If you adjust the numbers of the attack properly, thats the only thing that changes, so I don't understand the butthurt.

 

3) Why won't enemies disengage? Because the clauses that are in the game at the moment suck? What argument is that? I don't care how bad the game plays in an unfinished state, I care about how the final game ends up. That the AI shouldl be able to disengage is even something josh announced.

 

4) It's not supposed to be a no-brainer, you want it to be one. It could be made to a no-brainer, but there is absolutely no reason why it should be, apart from personal preference. You can design a perfectly fine game around the assumption or without the assumption. Don't tread everything the IE games did like dogma. It's exactly as I said:

The disengagement system makes positioning a nontrivial decision, as the only thing it does is putting penalties on actions which would otherwise be only beneficial, so that you have to weight the advantages and disadvantages. You can like or dislike that, but that's exactly what it does. If you feel like the penalties are so high that it becomes a non-decision, then that only shows that balancing is way off, which can be changed with a patch anytime.

 

5+6) There is a fine line between abusing and using incentives. I would certainly not play the same way if the mechanic is in or out. I also withdrew units in the IE games when they were low on health and beelined for enemy casters if given the chance. I have no clue where you get the idea that I would've never thought about moving characters back. What I wouldn't think about is pushing enemies into a corner such that their attack clause forces them to attack my units, which is illogical any way given that they just could run around me as I could with them.

 

 

I think at this moment, we can just agree to disagree. Personally, I can live with both the disengagement system and without it, but I would prefer it. I still think it's very narrow minded if you just dismiss the idea that people see merit in having the mechanic, whether you personally agree with it or not. No one is arguing that it's good at the moment, at least, but I think it could work just fine with the proper tuning.

[sb5]

This game should really be turn based and taken ToEEs combat system. It's the best I've played with. It has great disengagement with zones of control and 5-foot steps to slowly disengage melee to get rid of maluses for ranged characters or spell casters.

 

Turn based games are much better manageable, I find RTwP to be confusing often... One of aspects I've dislikes in the IE games actually.

Edited October 27, 2014 by sb5

[NegativeEdge]

I don't have a preference right now regarding engagement but there are a few things which make me think  it will be a difficult thing to implement well.

 

Firstly the process of becoming engaged cancelling a characters orders has to go. Total control over your party is crucial to this kind of gameplay barring status effects or other disabling conditions. When you give a character an instruction it needs to follow that no matter what. There are few things more disruptive and annoying than having your characters doing something you didn't tell them to or failing to do something you did. If I tell my priest to walk over to the fighter and heal him then I need to know that only death is going to stop her doing that.

 

Secondly, with 6 party members a certain amount of automation is needed in a game this long. Nobody wants to micro manage every single encounter but you can't trust the AI to intelligently work around engagement. Just like in NWN2 where you could tell your rogue to disable traps on sight and then watch in horror and disbelief as he runs through a throng of enemies provoking a storm of AoO's to get to the single gas trap behind them because computers are dumb as bricks and it can't see how stupid that is.

Can you imagine how bad it would be in PoE if you even tried to automate something simple like "when travelling from point A to B, always skirt around enemy engagement" with this games pathfinding!?

 

edit: I suppose you could think about being engaged as a status effect in itself but that just leads back to problem number 2. Sometimes it would be a good idea to plow through and take the disengaement attack other times it wouldn't and I wouldn't trust an AI to make good decisions like that. Somehow you will also need to communicate to the player that char A is now engaged and not doing what you just ordered anymore, The red arrows kind of work I suppose.

Edited October 27, 2014 by NegativeEdge

[Sensuki]

1) Ask yourself this question:

Assume the roles are swapped and you control the right party trying to get the backline of the left party. If the AI would try to block you like this, would you change your target to the blocking unit or would you just go around the enemy and hit the back row anyway?

If you wouldn't change your target but just go around the enemy to the backline anyway, as there is no penatly for doing so, then you just argued that the AI of the IE games is exploitable and stupid. In the same situation, with a disengagement mechanic, you probably wouldn't just jogg past them because you get hit in the face, making your behaviour more similiar to the AI, but for a proper reason.

Doppelschwert, AI in every game is exploitable by the player. There are some games where the AI is impossible to beat (some Chess AI, Naughts and Crosses AI, etc) but most computer game AI is exploitable and beatable. I do not think it is good design to create mechanics that handicap the player because the enemy AI is not smart. This is not fun. It is one of the reasons why the Pillars of Eternity Melee Engagement system was created, but perhaps not the main reason. The main reason seems to be more aimed at giving players control over the enemy AI which I am 100% positive is possible without Engagement at all. It is all about the enemy AI targeting clauses. Designers should focus on creating fun and challenging encounters, not systems that put the player at a loss.

 

2) I have to ask you again as well, why can't you do this just some time before you are actually at the brink of death? What's pretending you doing the same maneuver at 20% of HP instead of at 5% of HP? It's way harder to back up with the disengagement mechanic, because you have to anticipate just how much damage you will take until you moved away (Will you take a crit? can you survive another attack while still being able to back away? That is risk vs. reward decision making).

If you adjust the numbers of the attack properly, thats the only thing that changes, so I don't understand the butthurt.

 

3) Why won't enemies disengage? Because the clauses that are in the game at the moment suck? What argument is that? I don't care how bad the game plays in an unfinished state, I care about how the final game ends up. That the AI shouldl be able to disengage is even something josh announced.

If AI was created where enemy units would disengage when certain AI conditions are fulfilled, the player could exploit those conditions to get free engagement attacks. This kind of happened in the NWN games, and I think that is why the developers have 'sticky' AI targeting at the moment.

 

4) It's not supposed to be a no-brainer, you want it to be one. It could be made to a no-brainer, but there is absolutely no reason why it should be, apart from personal preference.

I have to ask you, do you ever micro units back in RTS games? Forcing enemies (player or AI) to focus fire certain units and then micromanaging those units to the back is the bread and butter of RTS micromanagement, it is how you keep your units alive (thus causing no resource losses to yourself) while reaping maximum effectiveness from your unit composition. In the Infinity Engine games I minimize damage to my party by using my character with the highest AC to tank the majority of melee characters in combat. I send that character in first to snag all of the auto-attack clauses from the enemy AI and then send my other melee characters in at a delay so they are not targeted by the AI - because I know that the AI will keep targeting the first character I sent in.

 

If I sent them all in together, the AI might try and target my characters with a worse armor class, or lower hit points. Playing like this also reduced the amount of healing that I have to spend across the party, because the character with the highest AC takes less hits and thus less damage. Sometimes I cast heals on the character, sometimes I use potions, but there are some cases when this character is reduced to very low health when surrounded by multiple enemies. In that situation I have to micro my character back, because they will die if they are hit again. ENEMIES CAN STILL ATTACK ME WHEN I MOVE AWAY WITH THEIR REGULAR ATTACKS (YOU KNOW, BECAUSE IT'S A REAL TIME GAME AND ENEMIES CAN ACT AT THE SAME TIME AS MY CHARACTER). IF AN ENEMY IS CURRENTLY SWINGING AT ME AND I ISSUE A MOVE COMMAND, THAT ATTACK WILL HIT AND PROBABLY KILL MY CHARACTER. THE REASON WHY DISENGAGEMENT ATTACKS ARE DUMB IS BECAUSE IT GIVE ALL ENEMIES WITHIN RANGE A FREE ATTACK INDEPENDENT OF RECOVERY TIME ON MY CHARACTER.

 

The disengagement system makes positioning a nontrivial decision

It's not a non-trivial decision, it's playing smart. Disengagement attacks serve to penalize players who play intelligently.

 

And beelined for enemy casters if given the chance

Your characters would still be able to do this anyway in PE except that your characters currently auto-attack enemies when they are Engaged, which is a load of horse dung, and makes it like an aggro mechanic. I _DO_NOT_ want any mechanics other than spells such as Disables, Fear, Charm etc to cancel or override the current action of any of my party members.

 

What I wouldn't think about is pushing enemies into a corner such that their attack clause forces them to attack my units, which is illogical any way given that they just could run around me as I could with them.

It's not illogical, in real-time - any time the enemy can move, you can move, you can keep moving your character and blocking them in the IE games so that they cannot get past.

 

This is not an example from the IE games, but you can do this to block units:

 

 

I still think it's very narrow minded if you just dismiss the idea that people see merit in having the mechanic, whether you personally agree with it or not. No one is arguing that it's good at the moment, at least, but I think it could work just fine with the proper tuning.

It is not narrow minded. I think the reason why most people like the idea of Melee Engagement is more for the AI targeting clauses that cause enemies to attack their frontline characters and not the fact that their characters will suffer disengagement attacks if they try and move away from combat. Players want to be able to control the battlefield. You can already do that in the IE games, I think some people either just did not understand the enemy AI and/or have not played the game in such a long time that they forget what it played like. I also think that some people just do not like unit micromanagement in general. Melee Engagement is a form of automation that makes the game require less inputs from them.

Edited October 27, 2014 by Sensuki

[Captain Shrek]

Sensuku dude. The idea of AoO in RTwP was that it was Free attack outside of the combat actions allowed for that round. In that respect as PoE has the sleep timer on all chars (the global cooldowns) it would not really make sense here. So overall I feel that you are right about melee engagement. This is something I have always criticized. I do agree that AoOs directly taken from NWN/2 would not work in this game as the core mechanics is not round based really. But I do not see how only blocking a char in the map will help either. IF the action economy was not blocked by the global cooldowns, it WOULD work. i.e. then you could actually make an attack on a moving char. Right now, they could just move past and the enemy would be helpless as they would still be in the cooldown from their previous action. On the other hand, if they are NOT on a cooldown from the previous action, they would potentially risk wasting an attack on a random dude instead of attacking their main target. If they just ran around trying to block others, they would waste all the other tactical options that can be used to make attacks. 

 

I would rather simply add a free attack like AoO to accommodate the problem of moving in the game. 
 

[Sensuki]

The problem you are speaking about is also a non-issue IMO, and it is separate from the current problem. You can run right past any unit in the game now if they have no free Engagement slots (most enemies) and they will do nothing. There's nothing wrong with that, because they're focus firing another character.

 

I don't think there should be a penalty for running past units, there are no facing mechanics in the game (although there is flanking). Often combat is fought in tight spaces where you have to move past other units anyway, and currently the pathfinding causes units to ring-around-the-rosey other units when moving towards a target, which is nothing like the pathfinding of the IE games or any RTS games I have played. I believe this would promote cheap tactical retreating into chokepoints more often than now. I would completely abuse this mechanic by sending a quick character to get AI targeting and then run them past my other melee characters for a free AoO - just like in NWN2.

 

Pausing and moving away from units while they are in recovery is good play, however that unit can also chase you and in the current patch, their recovery time will tick down while moving (YAY) so that when they reach you they will be able to attack again. In these types of games the benefit of higher movement speed (Monks etc) is that they can land attacks while chasing .. although some of the area design (corridors etc) might make that a bit difficult. Beetles can hit you when you're running away from them because they have a faster movement speed than you. Even with my mod turned off, an Adra beetle still KO'd one of my chars with an 80 damage hit and that character was running away.

 

However we have spent the past few pages speaking about Melee Engagement ... likely due to it being a topic upon which there is disagreement. Even though I am fairly firmly advocating it's removal it is far from the largest issue with combat at the moment. Far from it.

 

IMO the biggest problems are:

• Party Member AI that cancels your actions
• Lack of animation feedback - need a different stance for combat idle and "in recovery"
• Pathfinding sucks
• Movement speed is too fast, enemies are faster than party
• Per-hit damage - this causes combat to be too lethal, and too short, possibly partially related to Attack Resolution system
• Spell FX obscuring the Battlefield - Spell FX guy needs to chill out and reduce the persistence of effects, tone down the lighting, stop making big AoE effects for buffs and debuffs and just do per-unit shaders/FX etc etc

The lack of voice sets is also probably attributing to it as well.

 

I think that the lower camera angle outside, the character sorting with the environment (blending into grass etc) also creates visibility issues, but I don't think those are things that can be rectified. I think they slightly improved the contrast of characters from the background in this build, I haven't compared screenshots though.

Edited October 27, 2014 by Sensuki

[Seari]

Isn't the party AI that cancels your orders due to engagement?

 

edit: Characters are definitely more visible in this build.

Edited October 27, 2014 by Seari

[Sensuki]

Not always, in my second episode of Sensuki vs Medreth I moved my Priest near a character but did not issue her to attack. She was not engaged by the nearby enemy but she started auto attacking him for some reason, I am not sure why.

[Captain Shrek]

Hmm.

 

I have a similar list as your Sensuki. 

 

1) Two HP pools are unintuitive and unnecessary. 

2) The combat pacing needs severe readjustment. Slowing down action speed would help. 

3) The run speed of enemies is too fast. 

4) The Graze system needs to go.

5) The critical hit chance needs to be independent of accuracy. 

6) AI needs to be more sensible in party as they cancel commands without notice or reason. 

[Sensuki]

I think the two HP pools could be changed from the Darklands style which is more unintuitive (sorry Josh) to just Endurance and Health would become a 'Healing resource'. I've suggested this before, but instead of damage being dealt to both pools, damage would only affect Endurance and all Healing would come from the Health pool. It's still mechanically the same in 99% of cases, except that the UI display is more like 4E Healing Surges.

Here's a bad mspaint mockup I did a while ago (it would not have to look like this)

 

 

Say the character enters combat and takes some damage. After combat the damage is healed by their Health Pool

 

 

Something like that anyway. Personally I don't care - but I think that display would be more intuitive. When you run out of Health Pool, you only have your remaining Endurance to run with.

I think grazes are fine, I just think the Attack Resolution system could probably be normalized a bit more, reigning in the extreme misses and crits when ACC-DEF = -XX or +XX. Right now it's very swingy/random.

Edited October 27, 2014 by Sensuki

[Lhynn]

 

2) The combat pacing needs severe readjustment. Slowing down action speed would help. 

 

From what ive seen combats pace can be mostly attributed to big damage numbers. Damage from most sources should be cut down to make fights play out slower. Attacks and recovery times already make "rounds" longer than IE games, but damage keeps combat too short and unpredictable. Its nice from a simulationist standpoint, but its bad for tactical gameplay.

[PrimeJunta]

No I'm not. The idea is to retreat from the front line away from your attackers, not two metres back so they can still hit you. Like you can in the IE games.

 

That is exactly what I think you should not be able to do with impunity and without use of special abilities, IE games be damned.

 

You should be in trouble if you get engaged in melee by something that's better in melee than you are. Inherently squishy units should have ways of dealing with these situations—like, y'know, magic for spellcasters and Escape for rogues.

 

But it totally should not be something any toon can do at any time. It removes an enormously central element of tactics in gameplay, so much so that without it I'm a bit uncomfortable even describing the combat as tactical. And yes, that applies to the IE games as well.

 

Edit: just got to the your post at 02:12. Let's drop this topic for now; I'm in full agreement with your priority list. If it still feels bad after those are taken care of, I'm willing to reconsider my position.

Edited October 27, 2014 by PrimeJunta

[Sensuki]

But it totally should not be something any toon can do at any time. It removes an enormously central element of tactics in gameplay, so much so that without it I'm a bit uncomfortable even describing the combat as tactical. And yes, that applies to the IE games as well.

That's bs man - so you're accusing every RTS player of NOT being tactical when moving units back when injured ????????? :/

 

It's a part of the gameplay of all RTS style games. Infinity Engine games, RTS games, MOBAs. 

 

The general RTS rules in this instance is:

 

It's hard to retreat from fast enemies, they can proc hits on you when you're running away

The enemy should disable you if they don't want you to run away

 

It is unnecessary to use a derpy system that grants units free attacks against units that move away from combat. There are way more RTS-y ways of handling stuff like that. Omniknight in DotA2 has an AoE slow passive aura that makes units within a 200 units of range AoE have up to -28% move speed, making it easy for him to chase people down.

 

PE Fighters have a Knock Down ability

Rogues have their Crippling Strike ability that causes the Hobbled effect which slows people down. 

 

Priests, Wizards, Druids and Ciphers all have some form of AoE crowd control/slow/disable to stop characters from moving

 

etc etc

 

If you want to make a class sticky, make the class sticky - give the Paladin an MS decrease aura, give the Fighter a Talent that rolls for the Hobbled effect when he causes an Interrupt ... stuff like that

 

You don't need Melee Engagement that gives a FREE ATTACK INDEPENDENT OF RECOVERY TIME TO ALL ENEMIES ENGAGING YOU

Edited October 27, 2014 by Sensuki

[Sensuki]

Oh yeah and the Melee Engagement system trivializes fast movement in the first place. I am ignoring all Abilities, Spells and Talents that increase my characters Movement Speed because in combat you just stand still anyway.

[Captain Shrek]

You can add trips to that list. I find it utterly bewildering that the best fighter abilities from D&D never made to the IE/NWN games.

 

 

I think the two HP pools could be changed from the Darklands style which is more unintuitive (sorry Josh) to just Endurance and Health would become a 'Healing resource'. I've suggested this before, but instead of damage being dealt to both pools, damage would only affect Endurance and all Healing would come from the Health pool. It's still mechanically the same in 99% of cases, except that the UI display is more like 4E Healing Surges.

Here's a bad mspaint mockup I did a while ago (it would not have to look like this)

 

 

Say the character enters combat and takes some damage. After combat the damage is healed by their Health Pool

 

 

Something like that anyway. Personally I don't care - but I think that display would be more intuitive. When you run out of Health Pool, you only have your remaining Endurance to run with.

I think grazes are fine, I just think the Attack Resolution system could probably be normalized a bit more, reigning in the extreme misses and crits when ACC-DEF = -XX or +XX. Right now it's very swingy/random.

I am really at a loss with this. Why is it even necessary? What is wrong with a single pool? What is the additional advantage of this system that can't be obtained in a single pool system?

Edited October 27, 2014 by Captain Shrek

[Sensuki]

Knock Down is basically a trip ?

[Captain Shrek]

Knock Down is basically a trip ?

 

yeah. Forgot about that.... NWN/PoE does have it. Did IE games have that mechanic? That only means IWD2 anyway.

 

EDIT :

Also, of course, grapple is missing which was the best monk/fighter feat to neutralize spellcasters.  

Edited October 27, 2014 by Captain Shrek

[Sensuki]

Nope. IE games didn't have a prone state either. 

[archangel979]

Combat should be balanced around 5-6 spells cast vs smaller groups or non trash enemies, and 10+ spells cast vs unique enemies/bosses.

I use spells cast as measurement as spells are slowest with 3s casting time and 3s recovery without armor.

[Killyox]

Movement speed is like Usain Bolt on crack. And they wear armor, weapons and should be on guard.

 

Movement speed seems to be the biggest offender. I must say I really dislike how you need to pause the game every 0,25 seconds. 

 

I don't like slide-show style games and because of how combat is it certainly feels like it.

[Lhynn]

Nope. IE games didn't have a prone state either. 

I believe they did, wasnt used that much tho. Maybe monk had some skills that left you prone (never played one) i know Baltazhar had some , dragons made you prone with their wing buffet by making you unconscious on top of knocking you back.