Sensuki vs Medreth [Youtube Series]

[archangel979]

Hero harass was the reason why I could never get into 1v1 WC3 and just continued to play Starcraft instead.

[Sensuki]

I really liked Brood War. Probably the best RTS ever made, although not my favourite - I think Age of Empires 2: The Conquerors is probably my favourite.

[Shevek]

 

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.

I love that neutral language you are using there. Way to presume positive intentions and put the issue first. Anyways, I just don't think that you are really keeping the concerns of others in mind when you make your recommendations. Again, I do not mind effort and tactical thought in large combat set pieces but the IE games themselves were not set up to have long tactical encounters for every trash combat. Frankly, I do not think that when you are making these suggestions that you are speaking to the concerns of many forum goers who may not with to get into a chess match over killing every single random insect they stumble across in this game.

 

 

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

Would isometric freeze tag be fundamentally better? I just don't think it has been demonstrably shown that pausing every two seconds and running in circles while popping potions is actually better. I don't think exploiting idiotic AI to block incoming enemies with other party members and watching them stand idle for a few seconds while the AI figures it should switch targets is partticularly deep gameplay. How is it less boring to pause 20x more in trash combats when you already know you are going to beat them? Look, we all know where the money is in IE combat. Its in fighting those big, memorable encounters than occur a handful of times throughout the game. Those are what need to feel good, require thought and be engaging. The other combats minus well be short so we can enjoy the story and feel powerful as we gear up for those encounters. PoE at least gives some value to the trash encounters by having them widdle down party health and resources. This gives them additional value that IE trash combats did not have thanks to rest abuse.

 

 

 

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.

I do not see your position all that different. You have stated numerous times that you "will not accept" a system of free attacks. You have quoted other RTS titles and looked to history rather than the reality of this titles, its goals and where it can go. In other words.. Pot. Kettle. Black.

 

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.

In most IE combat, I didn't need to either. Again, we have to remember what we are talking about here. This is just good ole trash combat. The IE games were like 80-90% trash combat that required little more than select all attack. If you truly want to stick with the IE formula and combat is such a big deal there, why do you want more micro in every combat?

 

Speak for yourself.

Speak for yourself but don't ignore those around you.

 

It's you who isn't listening to us

Like you I listen and speak but you fail to understand that the burden of proof lies on you. You are asking to change a game system and, ultimately, to make the game more focused on micro managing and pausing in trash combat than the IE games. You are going counter the design of this game and the design principles of the game series that inspired it. I guess I would say, listen to yourselves.

 

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.

Well, I will wait on hearing what the devs have to say about that process and pipeline.

 

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.

That was a bit ago. We are a little late in the game to start playing around by removing entire fundamental mechanics from something as central as combat. Also, there has been no hard data to prove that the system CANNOT be made to work. It is currently working with certain playstyles and players are able to interact with all content with it implemented. The notion that it cannot be made to work for other players is far too absolute to be true.

 

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.

I love this confrontational argument style you have. In any case, I don't consider my style abusive but I can see how you would think that. I also think similar claims could be made to running around doing cartwheels and sprints in combat...ignoring all the pointy swords... as you run about turning your backs on enemies. This is all perspective. I just feel that more upfront combat is a bit more true to life. Also, we can argu about tactics and reacts until we are blue in the face. However, the IE games were not a feast for the tactical senses in all its trash combats.

 

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'.

I do think that unrestricted movement in a combat zone is not particularly good design. I get that some may enjoy it. However, for someone who is arguing about design principles of the game, you yourself should know that unrestricted movement in combat is very much against the stated design principles of this game.

Edited November 18, 2014 by Shevek

[Formal Foreign Forum Fool]

I think it's important to note that the people in charge of these design decisions have been fans of IE and created this as a step forward, as indicated in the game's description.  These are the people that have been RPG junkies for their whole life with the added bonus of being professional developers.

More importantly, these people have the classified knowledge of exactly what the mid and end game's gameplay is like with the current mechanics in place.

Considering it's been multiple years in development I think it's silly that everyone's spouting off their opinion as fact and using that premise to devise some sort of "fix" or whatever other offensive term people have been using on all of the developers hard work.

[archangel979]

I think it's important to note that the people in charge of these design decisions have been fans of IE and created this as a step forward, as indicated in the game's description.  These are the people that have been RPG junkies for their whole life with the added bonus of being professional developers.

More importantly, these people have the classified knowledge of exactly what the mid and end game's gameplay is like with the current mechanics in place.

Considering it's been multiple years in development I think it's silly that everyone's spouting off their opinion as fact and using that premise to devise some sort of "fix" or whatever other offensive term people have been using on all of the developers hard work.

From what I seen people are offering fixes on what is offered in beta. And developers don't have this whole other cool game that is not offered in beta as far as mechanics go. At best they have few weeks of additional fixes and features.

[Namutree]

If you truly want to stick with the IE formula and combat is such a big deal there, why do you want more micro in every combat?

Who says he does? Just because you can move in combat doesn't mean you'll have to. You have already stated that you didn't move your characters much in the IE games. Well guess what? They didn't have engagement. I guess that sticky mechanic isn't needed after all. 

 

 

 

That was a bit ago. We are a little late in the game to start playing around by removing entire fundamental mechanics 

 

How is engagement fundamental? It doesn't really contribute much of anything to the game.

[Formal Foreign Forum Fool]

Well offering feedback is expected and technically their duties as a beta participant but the problem is the suggestions that are demanding entire reworks of systems and even worse when they are saying something isn't fun when they're referring to subjective ideas.

I expect nonsense from any forum, especially a general section, but in a beta forum I am disappointed that people treat it like an early access version that they earned by paying beforehand.  

Some of the things being suggested are directly against the developers original ideas and this is important to consider the context it all:  The game is being polished and tweaked right now.  That means that the entirety of the game is complete if not 99% done.  The amount of work required to enact these types of suggestions aren't adjusting values on some line of code, it's that plus all of the play testing and double checking that the new values mesh with the flow of the game.

Values aside it's also possible for bugs to be created or multiplied through drastic changes so it's easy to talk about as the consumer but in the grand scheme of things there's so much time at stake here which is already something controversial considering the whole winter 2014 fiasco.

[archangel979]

Well offering feedback is expected and technically their duties as a beta participant but the problem is the suggestions that are demanding entire reworks of systems and even worse when they are saying something isn't fun when they're referring to subjective ideas.

I expect nonsense from any forum, especially a general section, but in a beta forum I am disappointed that people treat it like an early access version that they earned by paying beforehand.  

Some of the things being suggested are directly against the developers original ideas and this is important to consider the context it all:  The game is being polished and tweaked right now.  That means that the entirety of the game is complete if not 99% done.  The amount of work required to enact these types of suggestions aren't adjusting values on some line of code, it's that plus all of the play testing and double checking that the new values mesh with the flow of the game.

Values aside it's also possible for bugs to be created or multiplied through drastic changes so it's easy to talk about as the consumer but in the grand scheme of things there's so much time at stake here which is already something controversial considering the whole winter 2014 fiasco.

So, you want people to keep quiet and just let destiny decide if the game will be a IE successor or not?!

[Sensuki]

Yeah the people telling us to stop voicing our opinions are lolz.

[Shevek]

 

Who says he does? Just because you can move in combat doesn't mean you'll have to. You have already stated that you didn't move your characters much in the IE games. Well guess what? They didn't have engagement. I guess that sticky mechanic isn't needed after all.

Then you have some disagreement with BOTH developers and a sizable plurality of us who think the engagement mechanic makes sense. Moreover, no one has said anything is "needed." However, if one were to strip away everything that wasn't "needed" we would just play pong.

 

 

How is engagement fundamental? It doesn't really contribute much of anything to the game.

It helps drive combat and it is linked to both AI and character development.

Edited November 18, 2014 by Shevek

[Seari]

Why do you even care? Doesn't make a difference to your ****ty playstyle.

[Infinitron]

So, you want people to keep quiet and just let destiny decide if the game will be a IE successor or not?!

 

 

Are you the same Archangel from the Wasteland 2 forums?

 

If you are...are you starting to notice a pattern here, man?

[Sensuki]

Infinitron loves a good drama

[Shevek]

Why do you even care? Doesn't make a difference to your ****ty playstyle.

Well, maybe I like having enemy movement punished too. I dont like having them prance around my tank as if he wasnt there. I dont want every fight to be in a doorway. With the changes you propose, come changes to enemy AI. I dont think many of us want additional crap to do to stop the a wild pack of beetles (or any other trash mobs) from ping ponging around the battlefield and butchering my party.

[Sensuki]

Told you he only cares about the targeting clauses, haha. Been saying that the whole time, most people only like the engagement system because it is an aggro mechanic - forces enemy units to attack your Fighter, etc.

That can be done without the engagement system. 

 

refer to

 

 

 

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.

Edited November 18, 2014 by Sensuki

[Namutree]

Then you have some disagreement with BOTH developers and a sizable plurality of us who think the engagement mechanic makes sense. 

 

 

Who thinks the engagement mechanic makes sense? It doesn't make any sense at all. If some one is attacking me and tries to get away they don't just get hit with an instant, powerful, invisible strike.

[archangel979]

 

So, you want people to keep quiet and just let destiny decide if the game will be a IE successor or not?!

 

Are you the same Archangel from the Wasteland 2 forums?

 

If you are...are you starting to notice a pattern here, man?

 

Yes I am. I don't know what pattern you are talking about.

[Shevek]

 

Told you he only cares about the targeting clauses, haha. Been saying that the whole time, most people only like the engagement system because it is an aggro mechanic - forces enemy units to attack your Fighter, etc.

 

That can be done without the engagement system. 

 

refer to

 

 

 

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.

 

 "Only cares."  No.

[Lephys]

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.

You're making good points, but the gist of your argument is still "engagement currently sucks," when I have yet to argue "no, no, it's totally fine like it currently is!". You shouldn't accept anything that gives free unlimited attacks independent of the rules, which is why myself and oodles of other folks have proposed "Hey, let's limit that shyte, and make it obey the law!", amongst other changes.

 

Also, for what it's worth, I don't think relying solely active abilities to handle this "stickiness" issue and tuning the system around that would be a bad idea, in and of itself. I simply disagree that it would somehow be inherently more tactical than what engagement could potentially be. Really, the main thing is just that engagement's already in-place, so tweaking and tuning that into a better implementation seems like a much better idea than trying to go about things completely differently.

 

And the only real problem I have with active ability reliance is that, I really don't want "stickiness" occurring from my active abilities. I don't even want actual stickiness occurring from passive engagement mechanics. What I want are choices. I want an incentive to "sticky" to a target, not just always and forever, but as a default, if you're not employing some other tactics.

 

I think here's what it comes down to:

 

You think "tactics" are what you do to produce the "stickiness," while I'm simply trying to point out that tactics are also (without even changing anything, functionally, and using those very same abilities) what you do to avoid stickiness in the first place. With engagement, you can, feasibly (I'm not saying in the exact current, unchanged system with X abilities per-encounter, etc., at your disposal) avoid engagement all together. The difference is that it's on the attacker -- or the person trying to jog past the front lines -- to tactically get past the frontlines. It's not on the defender to burn a bunch of abilities just to make sure people don't charge right at all his "squishies."

 

I know what you mean about realistic examples, because what we're talking about is loosely founded on realism, but isn't attempting to 1:1 simulate it, per se. BUT, your example works well. However, it also illustrates a situation in which, represented by game terms, someone used something special to get past a defender, because your standard attacks aren't represented as time-buying parries or "stuns" of any kind. According to what a standard attack is representing in the game, if you simply took a graze or even a miss, then immediately followed that up with dropping your guard and breaking into a sprint past your opponent, he would just immediately follow up his attack with another attack, and you'd be hurting really badly, because Deflection represents more than just passive armor toughness. So, without your actual attention on the fight, you'd be suffering the functional equivalent of a Deflection penalty, at the very least.

 

Here's another thing:

 

They mentioned way back when that abilities would go per-rest, per-encounter, at-will. I think it would help if things like Knockdown and such were actually at-will abilities. They could be on cooldowns, even (just the at-will abilities), or have a chance of the effect failing (targets a different defense than Deflection, like many other effects after hit), etc.

 

Anywho, I would just very much like to see significant changes made to the specific problem areas of the current engagement system, THEN see what people think. It's not that there's NO other way to do it, or we're all doomed if they remove Engagement. Just, I still don't get why people are arbitrarily jumping to "strip it from the game," when there are so many little things that we all agree should change, and could be quickly and easily changed.

 

And, as for stuff like "the AI doesn't do engagement right," I agree that's problematic, but fair's fair. That's a problem with the AI, not engagement itself. If the AI didn't react right to character class, I wouldn't say remove classes from the game. It's just kinda like saying "Well, your radiator's out of coolant, so better just not-use this engine here," instead of simply filling the radiator with coolant.

 

I don't know of much in the game that doesn't suck when the AI completely ignores it. I realize we aren't going to be playing against friggin' Skynet, here, but it'd be nice if the AI at least acted like it was "thinking." Even just random dice rolls for decision-making, out of a pool of "these aren't horrible options in this situation" choices would be good. Or, to put it another way, I think it's more important that the enemy sometimes does A, and sometimes does B (so that you're always wondering what it's going to do), than for it to react like an actual human being in all situations. Aggro mechanics do some things pretty well, but they're too constant. Stir up enough aggro, and that guy's gonna switch targets. So, even though it's reacting realistically, in a sense, it's also reacting predictably. Which kind of takes you back to pre-aggro, where the enemy was just doing the same thing no matter what. If he always switches targets when you want him to, he might as well never switch targets.

[Sensuki]

Just, I still don't get why people are arbitrarily jumping to "strip it from the game," when there are so many little things that we all agree should change, and could be quickly and easily changed.

If you're still struggling, perhaps I need to highlight the important points for you? Let me try that.

 

My reason first and foremost for that I have already stated many times - Engagement prevents tactical retreating, and it makes movement in melee combat a trap choice aka don't do it. If you have actually been reading my posts properly then I'm not sure how hard that can be to understand. Josh was telling Jesse Cox not to move in melee combat in the twitch stream. The current idea is that you have to spend a resource to move - for melee that resource could be endurance and health or investing in a talent or ability, for ranged it's recovery time (and it also used to be recovery time for melee too).

 

This makes moving in combat NOT WORTH IT, why would you do it, when you can simply just clutch heal your tank instead, and just deal raw dps to kill the enemy as fast as possible ? It's a trap choice. I will not spend a resource just for the possibility of moving in real-time combat. I have not seen a single person in their streams using these abilities to move in melee. Everyone just stands there and stays in the same spot because that's what the game design wants you to do. However you can still kite the enemy into oblivion. One of the things the Melee Engagement system was trying to remove.

 

Melee Engagement makes moving in combat a binary trap choice, and it leads to boring gameplay which is less tactical, because it reduces the amount of options that you have to solve the problems that you are faced with in combat.

These options were present in the Infinity Engine, and often the design promoted it, and many of the mods for the IE games (such as the Harder Yxunomei and Harder Belhifet mods I used in my IWD Let's Play) almost make it a requirement to keep all of your characters alive in combat. I really enjoy that gameplay.

 

Stickiness through abilities is already in the game - Rogues have Crippling Strike, Fighter has Knock Down, Cipher has a stack of disables, Wizard has a slow spell. It's not really the player that needs these abilities because all the player needs to do to manipulate enemy positioning is understand the targeting clauses and position and move their units relative to those. Enemy AI can be programmed to make use of these to stop the player moving, players that aren't so good can use them as a fail safe, and they can also be used for things other than facilitating your own movement, or stopping enemy movement as well, and can play into certain combos.

 

Are you seriously advocating cooldowns????? Because cooldowns are specifically being avoided because the backers at large did not want them. MMO Aggro mechanics are also something that the backers at large specifically didn't want - however they've been tricked into suffering a similar version of them in the Melee Engagement system.

 

Many people here have complained about not being able to stop enemies in the Infinity Engine games, and that was simply because they did not understand how the targeting clauses worked. I believe that is the main reason why people want Melee Engagement - because it gives them a way to very easily control the combat situation with pretty much no effort. I have stated that this can easily be achieved through the targeting clauses alone, and does not require a discrete system to facilitate it.

 

For me, Melee Engagement = dumbing down the gameplay, and the 'disengagement attack' mechanic is hurtful to the feel and flow of combat. I was receptive to the idea at first, but after having given it a go, and then playing Icewind Dale to get a 'feel' for the differences I have decided that it really needs to go. I have tested it's removal, so has Cubiq and so has Captain Shrek - we all think combat feels more Infinity Engine without it, even though some large improvements to AI targeting and maybe a small tweak to attack animation interaction with moving targets need to be made to fully make it work. For people that really want to nail down unit movement in combat on top of taking advantage of the AI targeting clauses, there are and could be more abilities in the game to facilitate that.

 

I don't think it's worth saving, because it will likely take a lot of programming time and probably some problem solving time for Josh to be able to improve to a reasonable level, which will eat too much into more important things. In fact, I think the system is conceptually flawed, and if the concept is flawed, then the implementation will also be flawed.

 

Personally I don't think that's a very difficult viewpoint to understand, and I don't think I can explain it (again) any more clearly than that.

Edited November 19, 2014 by Sensuki

[Sensuki]

I would also like to add, that people's opinions on targeting in the IE games depends which game you are playing. The Baldur's Gate series has very simple distance based AI targeting, where it's really easy to kite enemies around (bad), but Icewind Dale Heart of Winter has very good AI targeting that is a bit more complicated. Since that's the game I played recently, that's where I've been drawing most of my examples from. 

[Shevek]

 

Melee Engagement makes moving in combat a binary trap choice, and it leads to boring gameplay which is less tactical, because it reduces the amount of options that you have to solve the problems that you are faced with in combat. These options were present in the Infinity Engine, and often the design promoted it, and many of the mods for the IE games (such as the Harder Yxunomei and Harder Belhifet mods I used in my IWD Let's Play) almost make it a requirement to keep all of your characters alive in combat. I really enjoy that gameplay.

So, you think movement should be required and that somehow having to weigh your options is less tactical? If the choice is currently considered a "trap" by some, the solution is NOT to reduce the options that the player must weigh. The solution is not to FORCE them to move. Instead, the solution is modify the mechanic so that it is slightly less punitive and players have to weigh their options so at times moving is worth it to make small, well thought out moves and at others it is not (or even to improve the use of limited engagement breaking mechanics so those that enjoy active and mobile play can use those to achieve their ends). What you are suggesting would not make the game more "tactical" at all.

 

 

Stickiness through abilities is already in the game - Rogues have Crippling Strike, Fighter has Knock Down, Cipher has a stack of disables, Wizard has a slow spell. It's not really the player that needs these abilities because all the player needs to do to manipulate enemy positioning is understand the targeting clauses and position and move their units relative to those. Enemy AI can be programmed to make use of these to stop the player moving, players that aren't so good can use them as a fail safe, and they can also be used for things other than facilitating your own movement, or stopping enemy movement as well, and can play into certain combos.

Active ability use is extremely limited (within the context of this discussion). In larger combats one will expend those uses of relevant abilities fairly quickly. This goes for both the enemy and the player. Will the beginning of combat be very still and then devolve into the enemy and players doing the Benny Hill dance as endurance drops and abilities are used up? Will the move to such a system require more use of such abilities? Will the tactics boil down to just weighing whether to snare an enemy or kite it? Is that tactics? Is that in line with what everyone feels combat should look like?

 

Moreover, active use abilities to limit movement require a fair amount of pausing. I just don't want to be on the look out every second of combat to see that an enemy has moved three pixels to the left and that I want to knock them down before they move out of range of my "sticky ability" and butcher my ranged characters or force them to run around until the enemy gets bored. This would make smaller, trash combats absolutely terrible. I just don't see that as terribly fun. Its sounds horribly tedious and not tactical at all. I just dont think that a large body of players sees it as good for the game to do what you suggest and dramatically increase the level of micromanagement.

 

 

Many people here have complained about not being able to stop enemies in the Infinity Engine games, and that was simply because they did not understand how the targeting clauses worked. I believe that is the main reason why people want Melee Engagement - because it gives them a way to very easily control the combat situation with pretty much no effort. I have stated that this can easily be achieved through the targeting clauses alone, and does not require a discrete system to facilitate it.

I hear a bunch of empty promises and loaded rhetoric there. I do not see a concrete alternative that would justify ripping out core gameplay mechanic and rebalancing an entire system in the final months of a game's development.

Edited November 19, 2014 by Shevek

[Sensuki]

So, you think movement should be required and that somehow having to weigh your options is less tactical? If the choice is currently considered a "trap" by some, the solution is NOT to reduce the options that the player must weigh. The solution is not to FORCE them to move. Instead, the solution is modify the mechanic so that it is slightly less punitive and players have to weigh their options so at times moving is worth it to make small, well thought out moves and at others it is not (or even to improve the use of limited engagement breaking mechanics so those that enjoy active and mobile play can use those to achieve their ends). What you are suggesting would not make the game more "tactical" at all.

No. You (as in you personally) don't move your characters away, you're happy with them dropping right? That won't change if Engagement was gone. Not a bit. But it will allow me to move a character back, intercede with another character and heal the wounded character, and then shuffle their positions in melee like I do in the Infinity Engine games. You are not forced to move.

 

You (plural, not personally) do not have to weigh your options. There is no decision to be made - you might think there is, and you (personally) demonstrated in a recent video how the choice is heal, stand there and die, or move there and die when you have a character with low endurance.

 

And it would make the game more tactical, it's just that you have the opinion that moving is abusive, and you just stand there and don't even control your characters in combat. I don't believe that you believe that movement should cost something, but it's probably an argument that you're going to use for convenience sake. What did you say about the removal of recovery time? Nothing. You probably didn't even notice a difference.

 

In larger combats one will expend those uses of relevant abilities fairly quickly.

 

Not if there was an incentive to save them, currently there isn't. The best decision is pretty much always to open with per-encounters for everybody except classes that have none.

 

This goes for both the enemy and the player.

 

The AI follows a pre-programmed script. Currently enemies that have per encounters are scripted to open with them, if there is a better option for the player, the AI can be adjusted to follow different rules with different weighted actions

 

Will the beginning of combat be very still and then devolve into the enemy and players doing the Benny Hill dance as endurance drops and abilities are used up?

 

Probably not IMO, because at the moment, PE is all about the opening. That's unlikely to change at all really, unless something is done to the ability and spell systems to promote more of a reaction from the player, rather than just piling on more dps and status effects.

 

Will the move to such a system require more use of such abilities?

 

Depends on how the AI targeting clauses are changed to reflect the removal of Engagement. The AI targeting clause used for engagement could be changed from "first enemy engaged by" to "first melee attacker attacked by" and it would be the same for enemies. However the current system is underdeveloped. I want some target reacquisition, and so do others, because the current AI is laughably bad.

 

Will the tactics boil down to just weighing whether to snare an enemy or kite it? Is that tactics? Is that in line with what everyone feels combat should look like?

You can kite enemies currently with the Engagement system, you can stick your nose up in the air at my videos all you like but I have recorded videos where I kite enemies around in circles and kill all of them with a single unit. Engagement does not prevent kiting, this has been established.

 

Moreover, active use abilities to limit movement require a fair amount of pausing.

This game is going to have target reacquisition eventually. If there are more melee enemies than your Fighter and other melee units can engage, those units may end up changing targets during battle, and if your units are engaging, it is also likely that they are being engaged as well. You will not be able to move those units to respond to the other melee units moving, you will have to use disables and slows that your backline units may have (Rogue Crippling Strike, Wizard Slow, Cipher confusion/charm etc).

 

The only difference in that situation will be that you can use your melee units to cut them off if you like.

 

I just don't want to be on the look out every second of combat to see that an enemy has moved three pixels to the left and that I want to knock them down before they move out of range of my "sticky ability" and butcher my ranged characters or force them to run around until the enemy gets bored. This would make smaller, trash combats absolutely terrible. I just don't see that as terribly fun. Its sounds horribly tedious and not tactical at all. I just dont think that a large body of players sees it as good for the game to do what you suggest and dramatically increase the level of micromanagement.

Enemies *do not move* to do anything except get in range to perform actions. If a melee unit is performing melee actions, they will not move because they are currently in range of their target. If ranged units and casters are in range of their target, they will not move.

 

If enemies responded to the first melee unit they were attacked by - problem solved, they would turn to attack you like they currently do. I have stated multiple times over multiple threads that it is the targeting clause of the Engagement system that you like. It can still exist without the disengagement attacks.

Edited November 19, 2014 by Sensuki

[Seari]

Why do you bother reasoning with someone whose playstyle consists of select all => attack, and finds "It's alright, they'll get back up" acceptable gameplay.

[Lephys]

 

Just, I still don't get why people are arbitrarily jumping to "strip it from the game," when there are so many little things that we all agree should change, and could be quickly and easily changed.

If you're still struggling, perhaps I need to highlight the important points for you? Let me try that.

 

Yes. Thanks. When I ask "why not change it from how it is, so that it isn't how it is?", please highlight the super relevant points of "BECAUSE THIS IS HOW IT IS, AND IS BAD!"

 

Bravo... *applause*. Also, suggest that I'm having difficulty comprehending the things that you are saying, and/or lack reading comprehension. That's always productive. I mean, if you had only posted your points, and didn't make sure I knew I was struggling at comprehension, how on earth would I understand them as well?

 

"Oh, I'm having trouble? Well, when I think of it that way, NOW I get what you're saying! 8D!"

 

I didn't say I don't get what Sensuki types. I said that I don't get why "strip it!" is definitely a better idea than "make it not do those things that are dumb about it."

 

Also, for the record, moving isn't a trap choice. Moving without first using some ability is. While I'm not saying that it's totally fine that you can't move at all without incurring an AoO (I've argued this about 37 times, now), avoiding "engagement" (not the strict mechanic, but just a melee conflict in general) is hardly any different from this in your "active abilities handle 'stickiness'" notion, except that in that, it's up to the defender to create the 'stickiness,' and in a melee engagement system, it's up to the offender (person trying to not-be-blocked) to avoid/actively break it.

 

In your system:

 

Foe rushes backline Wizard, Fighter blocks him by actively slo- but wait, the Foe STUNS the Fighter, and runs past with a troll face on.

 

In the system with engagement:

 

Foe rushes backline Wizard, Fighter blocks him by engagi- but wait, the Foe STUNS the Fighter and runs past with a troll face on.

 

There's always going to be a "not if I counter it!" element involved... back and forth, indefinitely. "Oh, he stunned the Fighter and ran past? Okay, the Cleric CCs him so he can't get to the Wizard. Now the Fighter catches up to him before he's out of it and slows him. Now he tries to incapacitate the Fighter again, to get to the Wizard. OR he just runs at the Wizard and hopes for the best."

 

The problems with engagement have been listed numerous times, and none of them are "it just takes care of everything and there's no way around it, and there's no active use of tactics, BECAUSE ENGAGEMENT!". So, obviously, we could just fix the problems with its current state.

 

Honestly, you could take the current engagement mechanic and turn it into an active ability, directly, with limited uses and everything, and hardly anything would change at all. So, again, why destroy it to replace it with something that already exists in the game (you can already Web/slow/stun/knockdown/otherwise-incapacitate people in order to "sticky" them so that they cannot get to whomever you're trying to protect), when it could just be fixed (meaning it would no longer operate in the exact same, problematic manner that you've cited a hundred times, just to be clear)?

 

I would like to know why fixing it, or at the very least attempting to, conceptually, is some horrible idea, and "tear it out of there and just let active status-effect abilities handle everything" is inherently a much better idea.