Sensuki vs Medreth [Youtube Series]

[Doppelschwert]

 

Current Engagement Problems

• Radii is irrespective of weapon range......I concede that point. I took a look at the official wiki to find answers, and I did. It's pointless and illogical. I gave them more credit than was deserved evidently. I apologize for that.

 

 

What's official about the wiki? The wiki is maintained by people from this very forum, or am i wrong?

That's hardly an official statement without a quote in the article, you know as much as before.

 

I also don't think the disengagement radius depends on weapon reach, but basically we still don't know.

[Sensuki]

It doesn't as implemented in the game anyway. 99% sure it's not supposed to though.

[Kjaamor]

That's what I thought, there seems to be a horde of people out there that get butthurt about the existence of kiting gameplay and are fully willing to remove any corresponding tactical movement in combat to try and remove it.

 

Getting butthurt over the inclusion or lack of inclusion of kiting gameplay. Imagine that.

[Namutree]

 

That's what I thought, there seems to be a horde of people out there that get butthurt about the existence of kiting gameplay and are fully willing to remove any corresponding tactical movement in combat to try and remove it.

 

Getting butthurt over the inclusion or lack of inclusion of kiting gameplay. Imagine that.

 

Who's butthurt over the lack of inclusion of kiting gameplay? As of now kiting is very possible in poe.

[Guest 4ward]

if they decide to stick with some kind of melee system pehaps melee engagement should start only with a succesfull melee hit (so standing close is not the only precondition).

And if a unit wanted to disengage (because low health or for support of another unit), it will not be punished with damage to health when moving away. Instead for the next short time period (e.g. 5 seconds) the enemy would gain movement speed and action speed bonus and (try to) follow the unit. After this period the enemy would revert to the old movement/action speed and stick with following the unit unless it moves to a closer unit. In that case it would target the new unit. If other units successfully block the enemy in the a.m. short period, the enemy would attack the closest unit (having the movement /action bonus applied for the a.m. period). What do you think? Anyone has some other ideas? I agree with Sensuki  and would like it without the mechanic but perhaps if punishment of disengaging wouldn't be so punishing..

[Sensuki]

The reason I was motivated to investigate how the game played without it is that it prevents tactical retreating, which is something I want to do, and something I want hard set encounters to be designed around.

[Namutree]

Maybe engagement should be a special condition that only special monsters and warrior classes can do. As a result, you could still use engagement to protect your weaker units, but most enemies won't do it to you so you can still retreat. Also, there could be a limit on how often you can engage an enemy per battle. Maybe once the enemy has paid the disengagement cost (a free attack) you can't be sucked back into it.

 

Combine that 4ward's idea that engagement should require a melee attack (I don't think the attack should need to land) and you have a mechanic that is much less annoying, but still fulfills it's basic purpose.

Edited November 8, 2014 by Namutree

[Seari]

Engagement was introduced to prevent us kiting units, not the other way around.

[Sensuki]

Melee Engagement is not some magical system that will protect your weaker units, all it is is some AI targeting clauses combined with a conditional-based attack of opportunity. All you should need to 'protect' your units is to position your character correctly initially and re-position them if there is a problem.

[Anaeme]

All this debate would not have started if Sensuki had left Medreth alone!!

 

Medreth was standing by herself enjoying the nice weather outside the inn when Sensuki came and threw a noxious blast on her....lol

Edited November 9, 2014 by Anaeme

[Sensuki]

 

Didn't notice that the Monk was still charmed until after I pressed stop record, but I killed him with a single round of left click attacks afterwards hahah.

[Lephys]

Melee Engagement is not some magical system that will protect your weaker units, all it is is some AI targeting clauses combined with a conditional-based attack of opportunity. All you should need to 'protect' your units is to position your character correctly initially and re-position them if there is a problem.

It's not even supposed to protect your weaker units. It's just supposed to produce a tradeoff for ignoring people who are prepared to slap you in the face. If you get something for free (jogging past a melee-er to freely attack the back line), then so does that melee-er who's currently devoting all his attention to you.

 

Or, to put it simply, it's only supposed to stop people from freely ignoring melee combatants. You can already, no matter what, toss all manner of status effects at any given combatant while he happens to be jogging past a melee combatant. That isn't the point. You shouldn't have to burn all your CC and abilities just to handle what a simple conditional mechanic can already handle.

 

What's overboard is the magical radius. If your melee guy is standing around picking his nose, or is otherwise incapacitated, then he shouldn't get a free attack/bonus/what-have-you when someone jogs past him. So, it should require an actual attack (which is already governed by weapon reach). And it shouldn't be animation-less, and the AoO shouldn't occur when you leave the magic radius. It should occur when your target decides to disengage. That could be as simple as "he just kept on running," (as per a force-move command) at which point the second you got to attack, that would immediately be followed by a free AoO. If he hadn't kept on running (or had a force-move command), he would've squared off against you when you made the first attack. At this point, he could move more slowly around you while facing you, and he wouldn't disengage until he force-moved away (basically turning his attention toward moving, and resuming movement at full-speed), or targeted someone else with an attack or ability.

 

If someone disengages, then the system should say "well, I hope it was worth it," not "Ohhhh YOU CAN'T GET PAST THIS MELEE GUY!" That, and if you want to burn a stun/knockdown/incapacitating effect to run past him engagement free, then great. At that point, your backline or whoever can also opt to do the same to that person hurdling towards them unimpeded, giving your melee guy time to get back up and go after him, OR just charge the enemy back line unimpeded, etc.

 

Engagement, if it worked correctly, doesn't handle the battle for you. Nor does it deny you the ability to tactically affect the scenario with your active ability choice. It's not like we're choosing between the ability to stun/slow/knockdown/"actively sticky" people, OR some giant, overarching thing that just makes everyone sticky all the time and prevents people from attacking backlines.

[Sensuki]

Sure, it is supposed to do that. I am saying that it doesn't need to, because this is a real-time game, not a turn-based game and you do not need to give units free attacks independent of the rules of real time just because you move away from them in combat. They can still attack you as you are moving away and they can chase you. If you're slower than they are they can repeatedly bash you while you're running away.

 

It's also implemented very poorly, so that you can't even shuffle to the side to let another melee unit into the fray.

 

The movement in this game is an abstraction of a combat scenario. People keep thinking it's supposed to be realistic or something, well, it's not. I HATE using RL-inspired examples to try and prove points, but if someone has just completed their sword swing and you deflected it/blocked it etc, you can move backwards while they are in swing recovery ... they can also chase you with that sword, and provided they get in reach, hit you with it and another one of your units can intercede your attacker as well. AoOs are not needed to 'simulate' this situation. If the game had better attack animation interaction with moving targets, then when people move back they'd get hit a bit more often by melee units currently targeting them.

 

I will not accept anything that gives free, unlimited attacks indepedent of the rules of real time. I think melee stickiness through abilities would be much more successful and tactical.

Edited November 18, 2014 by Sensuki

[Namutree]

 I think melee stickiness through abilities would be much more successful and tactical.

Melee stickiness through abilities would have been better. I think this is what we might end up getting; I really doubt that the engagement mechanic as it works now is going to be kept.

[Shevek]

Melee stickiness through abilities would most likely add additional micro management and pausing to the game. Is that something folks really want? How many of us want to pause more as we battle the ever antagonistic beetle?

 

And, for what? The game is playable now and will only get better as game systems are improved.

 

I for one really like the idea of the engagement system. It doesnt not hamstring me in the current implementation and I am sure that any issues some have with it could be resolved through adding some kinda engagement attack cooldown or lowering damage on those attacks a bit, etc.

 

In any case, we are not serving this forum community or the game in general by demanding the surgical removal of game mechanics that we will not accept on principle or some such foolishness.

 

Listen we all have parts of the game that we may personally not 100% enjoy or philosophically agree with. I and some others would like combat xp but I am happy the devs listened and at least worked in some beastiary xp. Similarly, I would like 15 or more skills rather than 5. It is a bit late for that but I trust that they will work to improve their current implementation. I also would love magic to be more magical. Still, I know they have their design goals and they are making this game for more than just one subset of this forum.

 

We all may not be thrilled with engagement. Some like the idea but others do not. The reality is it is a mechanic we have. Why dont we work as a community to help OE improve whats there rather than start some foolish dust up to rip systems out? What will they do with engagement related abilities or the current AI if they opt for removal? What of these new abilities? What if the new systems some are calling for are more troubled than what they removed?

 

OE is not dumb. They arent about to jeopardize their game (or, at least, I hope they wont) by ripping out a fundamental gameplay system due to griping from folks in a backer beta forum playing an incomplete version of the game. They certainly shouldnt even consider that as we move ever closer to release.

Edited November 18, 2014 by Shevek

[Namutree]

Melee stickiness through abilities would most likely add additional micro management and pausing to the game.

No it wouldn't. Right now the engagement mechanic causes much more pausing than an ability mechanic which would only be rarely used could possibly add. As it is you always have to be on top of how much stamina your front row has since you cant retreat on the fly thanks to disengagement penalties. Removing disengagement in favor of abilities would drastically reduce micro as you now would have a margin of error for your front liners. Try Sensuki's no engagement mod; I promise you'll notice that there isn't any more micro needed.

 

 

And, for what? The game is playable now and will only get better as game systems are improved.

 

To make the combat good. Something that will be near impossible (If not literally impossible) with the engagement mechanic in.

 

 

In any case, we are not serving this forum community or the game in general by demanding the surgical removal of game mechanics that we will not accept on principle or some such foolishness.

 

We are testing the game. The combat isn't very good, and that's poe's primary selling point since this is such a combat focused game. Some of us feel that engagement must be removed for the combat to be good. We are serving the forum and development by suggesting the removal of a mechanic that is sabotaging the game. You may not agree that engagement is bad, but seeking the removal of a bad mechanic is just as legit as trying to find ways of improving the mechanic.

 

 

Still, I know they have their design goals and they are making this game for more than just one subset of this forum.

 

They are mainly making this game for IE fans, and trying to reach rpg noobs too. The combat of this game doesn't feel very IE like, and the engagement mechanic is VERY confusing for noobs. That's a problem. More than a few newcomers will rage-quit the moment they die from a disengagement penalty, or from their perspective; no reason at all. If they keep the engagement mechanic; I suspect few people will be pleased with this game's combat. If combat weren't such a major aspect of this game that might be forgivable, but that isn't the case. Bad mechanics need to be removed.

 

 

What will they do with engagement related abilities or the current AI if they opt for removal? 

The AI doesn't react to the engagement mechanic. Nothing for the AI would need to change. 

 

 

OE is not dumb. They arent about to jeopardize their game

OE took a huge risk introducing the engagement mechanic so they're not above taking risks. It would have been much safer to just copy/paste IE combat.

 

 

 by ripping out a fundamental gameplay system

Engagement isn't fundamental. It could be removed with little fanfare. It certainly would be less work than fixing it; if they even can fix it. 

Edited November 18, 2014 by Namutree

[Shevek]

 

No it wouldn't. Right now the engagement mechanic causes much more pausing than an ability mechanic which would only be rarely used could possibly add. As it is you always have to be on top of how much stamina your front row has since you cant retreat on the fly thanks to disengagement penalties. Removing disengagement in favor of abilities would drastically reduce micro as you now would have a margin of error for your front liners. Try Sensuki's no engagement mod; I promise you'll notice that there isn't any more micro needed.

I don't need to pause due to engagement. How will the proposed solution being discussed here continue to allow stickiness while not increasing pausing for my playstyle? What if I don't want to react to keep the enemy sticky? I like that engagement takes care of that for me.

 

 

To make the combat good. Something that will be near impossible (If not literally impossible) with the engagement mechanic in.

The combat is good for me right now. So, I don't see any universal logic in this statement.

 

 

We are testing the game. The combat isn't very good, and that's poe's primary selling point since this is such a combat focused game. Some of us feel that engagement must be removed for the combat to be good. We are serving the forum and development by suggesting the removal of a mechanic that is sabotaging the game. You may not agree that engagement is bad, but seeking the removal of a bad mechanic is just as legit as trying to find ways of improving the mechanic.

Again, you are making assorted judgements here and attempting to overgeneralize them. First you say combat isnt very good. It plays just fine on my end and plenty of folks can play through the Beta just fine so long as some bug doesnt mess up a save or something. Second, you claim that engagement (not spell design or encounter design or the undergearing of beta characters or anything else) is to blame. You even make the EXTREMELY HYPERBOLIC assertion that a single game mechanic is SABOTAGING a game. If the game were SABOTAGED, it would be unplayable. However, it is very playable in its current state. Finally, the removal of any system as pervasive as engagement is very much a BAD IDEA. Game development isnt like changing a tire. This isnt taking off the Goodyear and just slipping on a Firestone. If engagement is removed, they have to rework the AI and a host of talents/abilities. Again, this is a foolhardy thing to consider.

 

 

They are mainly making this game for IE fans, and trying to reach rpg noobs too. The combat of this game doesn't feel very IE like, and the engagement mechanic is VERY confusing for noobs. That's a problem. More than a few newcomers will rage-quit the moment they die from a disengagement penalty, or from their perspective; no reason at all. If they keep the engagement mechanic; I suspect few people will be pleased with this game's combat. If combat weren't such a major aspect of this game that might be forgivable, but that isn't the case. Bad mechanics need to be removed.

You are stating this from your play experience in beta. This is skewed. In beta, they drop you in the middle of act 2 with a large party. Starting at level 1 with a smaller party against weak act 1 enemies will afford new players plenty of time to learn the ropes before they reach where we are in beta now. If designed well, these early levels can easily inform players how to succeed in combat. Again, you are claiming these mechanics are bad. Again, that is a subjective value judgement. You are also stating that bad mechanics need to be removed. This is incorrect. Mechanics can be adjusted if need be. Removal is a terrible option. Additional, the term "bad mechanic" is extremely loaded. You might find fault in the implementation but to say the mechanic is bad is a terribly manipulative way to describe this situation.

 

 

The AI doesn't react to the engagement mechanic. Nothing for the AI would need to change.

I do not believe this statement to be correct.

 

 

OE took a huge risk introducing the engagement mechanic so they're not above taking risks. It would have been much safer to just copy/paste IE combat.

I doubt programming game mechanics simplyboils down to CTRL+C and CTRL+V. Moreover, I do not see engagement as a huge risk. AoO's are not new.

 

 

Engagement isn't fundamental. It could be removed with little fanfare. It certainly would be less work than fixing it; if they even can fix it.

This is a gross over simplification that totally ignores the current state of the game at present.

Edited November 18, 2014 by Shevek

[Sensuki]

Melee stickiness through abilities would most likely add additional micro management and pausing to the game. Is that something folks really want? How many of us want to pause more as we battle the ever antagonistic beetle?

You really hate pausing and effort don't you. Abilities with stickiness are already in the game and they could be passive, modal or active. Naturally that will require a few more actions from the player but that's the whole point. You actually have to DO something, rather than just stand there and auto attack away.

 

And, for what? The game is playable now and will only get better as game systems are improved.

Melee combat is still going to be a standing still boring mess.

 

I for one really like the idea of the engagement system.

Many people like the idea of it, and that's where I think a lot of people are having trouble coming to terms with the reality - you guys base your opinions of the system around ideology or what if's and ignore what it actually does.

 

t doesnt not hamstring me in the current implementation

Because you don't move your characters. If you never did that and don't like doing that then of course you're going to say that.

 

we are not serving this forum community

Speak for yourself.

 

Listen

It's you who isn't listening to us/

 

We all may not be thrilled with engagement. Some like the idea but others do not. The reality is it is a mechanic we have. Why dont we work as a community to help OE improve whats there rather than start some foolish dust up to rip systems out? What will they do with engagement related abilities or the current AI if they opt for removal? What of these new abilities? What if the new systems some are calling for are more troubled than what they removed?

And it's one that is easily removed with the deletion of a single class in the game code, takes about two seconds. Abilities are easy to modify. If I had the proficiency that Josh Sawyer has with the game variables and Unity inspector, it would not take me a very long time to change all of the engagement related abilities to something else, especially if I already had an idea about what I wanted them to change it to.

 

They arent about to jeopardize their game (or, at least, I hope they wont) by ripping out a fundamental gameplay system due to griping from folks in a backer beta forum playing an incomplete version of the game.

They removed crafting, and they removed familiars. They can remove this too with little to no effort, and the game would be better off being designed around in combat movement than stagnant combat. It would be much easier to cut Engagement than to try and make a flawed theoretical implementation work. That is why I think it should be removed, because there is just no way that it will work properly / not be exploitable. Not only does it remove fun gameplay, but it can also be abused quite badly in quite a few cases.

 

The combat is good for me right now. So, I don't see any universal logic in this statement.

You have confessed to enjoying boring combat. You have confessed to preferring passive play, where you just assign to attack and sit there doing nothing. You abuse encounters to make them take the least amount of effort possible. I do not believe the game should be designed around your preferences. This is a combat centric game and the aim of the combat style was supposed to be tactical and reactional. Currently it's not achieving that goal, but I guess you couldn't care less.

 

Second, you claim that engagement (not spell design or encounter design or the undergearing of beta characters or anything else) is to blame

You just don't seem to get it - there are people here that enjoy moving their characters around, and reacting to tactical challenges. You don't seem to be able to accept those facts, based on past comments. You think RTS style movement is 'abusive'.

 

Removal is a terrible option.

Removal is a quite sensible and practical option if a feature cannot be implemented properly. Edited November 18, 2014 by Sensuki

[Namutree]

 

 

The AI doesn't react to the engagement mechanic. Nothing for the AI would need to change.

I do not believe this statement to be correct.

 

It is. Have you ever seen the enemy respond to engagement? Do we have any evidence at all that they do?

 

 

 

 

No it wouldn't. Right now the engagement mechanic causes much more pausing than an ability mechanic which would only be rarely used could possibly add. As it is you always have to be on top of how much stamina your front row has since you cant retreat on the fly thanks to disengagement penalties. Removing disengagement in favor of abilities would drastically reduce micro as you now would have a margin of error for your front liners. Try Sensuki's no engagement mod; I promise you'll notice that there isn't any more micro needed.

I don't need to pause due to engagement. How will the proposed solution being discussed here continue to allow stickiness while not increasing pausing for my playstyle? What if I don't want to react to keep the enemy sticky? I like that engagement takes care of that for me.

 

Simple: The AI clauses that are already in place. The enemies will behave exactly the same whether or not there is a sticky mechanic. Engagement only affects the player's behavior; not the AI.

 

 

 

 

OE took a huge risk introducing the engagement mechanic so they're not above taking risks. It would have been much safer to just copy/paste IE combat.

I doubt programming game mechanics simplyboils down to CTRL+C and CTRL+V. Moreover, I do not see engagement as a huge risk. AoO's are not new.

 

The IE games were critical and commercial successes, and this is an IE inspired game. Any meaningful change to the mechanics is a huge risk. 

 

If the mechanics are IE like: There is a 100% chance your game will be a success.

If not: It's a maybe.

[Sensuki]

Simple: The AI clauses that are already in place. The enemies will behave exactly the same whether or not there is a sticky mechanic. Engagement only affects the player's behavior; not the AI.

Not 100% true. Engagement is the highest targeting clause. If a unit is engaged, that unit will begin to auto-attack the first unit it is engaged by (including your characters - which is extremely terrible). When Engagement does not exist (I have tested it), the first two targeting clauses remain - first enemy to attack, and closest enemy. Some units only target the first enemy that attacks, and others will override that clause with closest enemy.

 

There is no target re-acquisition however. You can kite enemies around forever with or without engagement.

 

The Infinity Engine games, and many other RTS games have vastly better targeting clauses and they actually have target re-acqusition. One of the dumb things about the Engagement system is that it 'hides' the need to have target re-acquisition a lot of the time, because if a unit is engaged in melee then people with little to no attention to detail will think that everything is 'working correctly'. As many people do here 

Edited November 18, 2014 by Sensuki

[Namutree]

 

Simple: The AI clauses that are already in place. The enemies will behave exactly the same whether or not there is a sticky mechanic. Engagement only affects the player's behavior; not the AI.

Not 100% true. Engagement is the highest targeting clause. If a unit is engaged, that unit will begin to auto-attack the first unit it is engaged by (including your characters - which is extremely terrible). When Engagement does not exist (I have tested it), the first two targeting clauses remain - first enemy to attack, and closest enemy. Some units only target the first enemy that attacks, and others will override that clause with closest enemy.

 

There is no target re-acquisition however. You can kite enemies around forever with or without engagement.

 

The Infinity Engine games, and many other RTS games have vastly better targeting clauses and they actually have target re-acqusition. One of the dumb things about the Engagement system is that it 'hides' the need to have target re-acquisition a lot of the time, because if a unit is engaged in melee then people with little to no attention to detail will think that everything is 'working correctly'. As many people do here 

 

I meant in regards to enemy re-acquisition. Obviously, I wasn't clear enough. The enemy will not ignore your front liner was my actual point. I guess I need to tone down the hyperbole as people are having trouble understanding me. My bad.

[Sensuki]

If the AI targeting was the same as the IE games, it would be pretty easy to manipulate enemies to attack the desired units that you wished attacked. However many people on the forums have complained that it was 'too hard' to do in the IE games (lol) so they may want to make it 'even easier' for them, at our expense unfortunately. But I'll accept that for the removal of engagement.

[archangel979]

I am very sad too see how close PoE combat is to what DAI has (and DAO did). I actually forgot the details of DAO combat as I have not played it for a long time but after watching DAI streams I see it is I always hit base mechanic and the whole tactical game comes down to managing/reducing damage and rotating cc abilities.

 

In IE you could reduce hit chance of enemy (main tactic) or reduce hit damage through Stoneskin or Mirror Image and some other spells. Or you could become immune to weapons for 4 rounds.

 

In PoE, hit/graze mechanic is closer to Dragon Age than IE. And encounter abilities to me sound a lot like cooldown cc abilities from Dragon Age games.

Dragon Age is inspired by MMO combat and I am sad to see PoE also using a similar system.

Edited November 18, 2014 by archangel979

[Seari]

If the AI targeting was the same as the IE games, it would be pretty easy to manipulate enemies to attack the desired units that you wished attacked. However many people on the forums have complained that it was 'too hard' to do in the IE games (lol) so they may want to make it 'even easier' for them, at our expense unfortunately. But I'll accept that for the removal of engagement.

I'm betting those are also the people that prefer the awesome DA:I combat. Or maybe holding left click for attacking while occasionally selecting special abilities might be too much for them to handle.

[Sensuki]

Probably just people unfamiliar with RTS style movement. I didn't understand the notion of tactical retreating until I played Warcraft 3 multiplayer. My mate Darren would always run his Death Knight back when I attacked it, and I was like WTF MAN - DISHONOURABLE

but it works.