Thoughts from a casual gamer

[YunikoYokai5]

YunikoYokai5: Have you tried clicking the like, and thereby unliking it?

Nope. It doesn't become a button once you like it. I've tried but nothing happens T.T

[IndiraLightfoot]

Yuniko: I just tried it on your last post. You like something, and then to the right of that like there is an X and it says "Unlike", and when I clicked that, my like on your post disappeared. It's in the lower right corner of the post.

 

EDIT: It's not an "X - it's just my forum graphics getting messed up again.

Edited November 10, 2014 by IndiraLightfoot

[Cubiq]

Still a little terrified to take on Medreth, even when I finally decide to try the monk. 

Was it any easier to play with the monk than other classes?

It does seem to be a bit OP atm.

[Sensuki]

In Shevek's video the Monk wasn't there on Normal difficulty, does that always happen?

[Cubiq]

Just ran the game, yep he's missing on normal.

Perhaps this was added in the newer versions, since i was also surprised when you pointed it out on the video.

Edited November 10, 2014 by Cubiq

[YunikoYokai5]

Yuniko: I just tried it on your last post. You like something, and then to the right of that like there is an X and it says "Unlike", and when I clicked that, my like on your post disappeared. It's in the lower right corner of the post.

 

EDIT: It's not an "X - it's just my forum graphics getting messed up again.

I tried it with yours and it worked, but it's not appearing for this one :S I think it's permenately liked. Thanks for all the help!

Edited November 10, 2014 by YunikoYokai5

[Quadrone]

Wow, this thread exploded since yesterday. It seems the discussion has now moved on quite a bit, so I'll just toss this out quick:

Reading up on things, between the stuff Razsius said is broken (and which I used) and how Shevek sets up his party and approaches combat I can now see why impressions differ so much. Makes me actually rethink that combat is not too hard in itself.

It just swings wildly depending on if you know how to avoid trap builds and max the correct skills/talents. From pause-a-thon to A-move your party.

Hopefully this is just another part of beta testing.

 

Huh, this also explains why sometimes it was me who murdered Medreth/Beetles and with a different Character/Party build it was me who got murdered.

   

[Sensuki]

It just swings wildly depending on if you know how to avoid trap builds and max the correct skills/talents. From pause-a-thon to A-move your party.

Hopefully this is just another part of beta testing.

Well there's also character level, whether you hire an adventurer and looted gear to consider. Shevek says he kills Medreth's group, gets the reward from Nyfre, levels up and buys a 6th party member. Many of us do it with the stock party, stock gear and no extra adventurer - and then on Hard you can't single pull beetles like that.

 

Some of us try to play 'optimally' as well. Shevek could lose less health if he used per-encounter abilities every encounter, but he prefers to just auto-attack because it requires less effort. So there's naturally a difference in pausing there too.

 

You can't really just stand there an auto attack on Hard either. Against beetle groups (they're pretty easy) it will work, but against spiders, Elder Lions, Medreth, the Drake Egg dudes, and the super encounter in the Dyrford Crossing you will die in a few seconds if you don't try. The thing is that it's not that it's really that difficult, it's just that the incoming damage is very high and encounters are over in usually less than 12-15 seconds. IE encounters are longer than that.

Edited November 10, 2014 by Sensuki

[Quadrone]

 

It just swings wildly depending on if you know how to avoid trap builds and max the correct skills/talents. From pause-a-thon to A-move your party.

Hopefully this is just another part of beta testing.

Well there's also character level, whether you hire an adventurer and looted gear to consider. Shevek says he kills Medreth's group, gets the reward from Nyfre, levels up and buys a 6th party member. Many of us do it with the stock party, stock gear and no extra adventurer - and then on Hard you can't single pull beetles like that.

 

Some of us try to play 'optimally' as well. Shevek could lose less health if he used per-encounter abilities every encounter, but he prefers to just auto-attack because it requires less effort. So there's naturally a difference in pausing there too.

 

 

Yes, I saw that. I just didn't want to write all the steps out.

But it's all the more aggrevating that i.e. the "correct" way to play is to kick out your mage since his spells are suboptimal and also kite your enemies.

Of course optimizing your party like that should make things easier, but it shouldn't completely turn the difficulty on its head. (Slight hyperbole, yes.)

[Shevek]

I buy TWO party members. I buy one BEFORE I kill anything just by selling excess gear. Then I kill Medreth, sell that loot, kill my own wizard and buy a Cypher (for the tougher fights). Then I turn in the quest and level everyone up.

[Sensuki]

Yeah, forgot about that. The party will have better (magical) gear in the full game too, so if anything it's probably too easy on normal

[nipsen]

 

Listen, this kind of high level commentary over what might be better than engagement is all well and good but, frankly, I have not heard CONCRETE reasons as why simple mechanical tweaks can't make the engagement system more of an asset.

 

Will probably have something on that soonish, but the fact is it's like anything really - religion or politics for instance, fair chance that once you made your mind up originally you're not going to change it.

 

Keep trolling nipsen

 

I'm terribly sorry, but apparently my religious conviction about the fact that I'm right prevents me from making a rational argument about anything. I still have to spam the forum with my clearly correct opinions, though.

 

(Countdown to "report for off-topic" in 3... 2... 1..)

 

 

Also, honestly, engagement has been given a fair amount of dev time and has talents, abilities and UI elements dedicated to it. Wouldn't it be more efficient to discuss how to improve the system rather than toss the baby out with the bathwater and waste all the dev time that went into it?

No, because it has serious problems even at the design level. Josh said (in a quote from about a year ago) that if they can't get it working properly they will probably cut it. Why waste even more time on a broken system when you can spend that time on better things ?

 

Also, his circular arguments are better than yours. Why is it broken? Because it is broken. Because it is broken.

[Sensuki]

Are you sure that's not a foregone conclusion there buddy?

[nipsen]

You mean, when people decide something is broken, and then literally argue that the reason why it is broken - is because they have decided it is broken - as if it's the most evident thing in the world?

 

I don't know, Sensuki - what do you think? You see, I always defer to random people on the internet when it comes to difficult decisions (like Obsidian does).

[Sensuki]

Do you think this is broken?
 

[prodigydancer]

Do you think this is broken?

Simply beautiful. The funny part is that kiting in IE games could keep you out of harm's way but at least your couldn't exploit it to do damage. And now, trying to prevent kiting, PoE makes it more powerful than ever.

 

Oh the irony.

Edited November 10, 2014 by prodigydancer

[Kjaamor]

Well, yeah, but that's an unfinished implementation against a single mob.

 

Part of the problem I have with a lot of the debates on the subject is that they repeatedly refer back to the comparison between the completed IE games (patched and often modded) and a beta version of PoE that no-one in their right mind would consider close to finished in terms of its mechanics.

[Sensuki]

I'm going to make a video where I kill Korgrak with just disengagement attacks, just haven't got around doing it yet though as today I focused on looking for bugs.

[Kjaamor]

The sad truth is that doing so would probably bring a few idiots over to your side on the matter.

 

If the current implementation is broken for the guard, it's already almost certainly broken for Korgrak.

[Namutree]

 

Do you think this is broken?

Simply beautiful. The funny part is that kiting in IE games could keep you out of harm's way but at least your couldn't exploit it to do damage. And now, trying to prevent kiting, PoE makes it more powerful than ever.

 

Oh the irony.

 

Irony indeed.

[MReed]

That's rather amazingly broken, Sensuki -- but I have to ask, why aren't your fighters suffering disengagement attacks themselves when they retreat?  I'm pretty sure that the intent is that they should, and that would tend to resolve the issue.

 

In regards to Kjaamor's comment:  The whole purpose of the beta is to point out and suggest solutions to broken mechanics, which is exactly what Sensuki is doing.  If you disagree that the current implementation is not broken, that's one thing -- I disagree, but that happens -- but it appears that your position is "It's broken, but I'm sure Obsidian knows about it and will fix it in some mysterious way that I don't care to speculate about, but will be perfect in all respects".  If that is your position, then I have to wonder why you are participating in Backer Beta discussions at all.

[Razsius]

For those that are wondering about engagement being addressed.  I'm currently at a 1000+ word proposal (and still very much going).  I'll attach a poll to the idea so people can weigh in.  it's basically a complete overhaul that would still make sense within the premises that the system was designed around.  I just got finished with my zones of control section which gives a nod to a fellow obsidian forumite (who ironically I tend to disagree with).  I sort of want Sen to review the ideas but I know he's very much against keeping the system at all.  We do agree on a lot of things but we're still individual people.  Regardless, it will be reviewed by the beta testers themselves and they might even be able to fill the holes where my arguments are weak.

 

The premise of this is simple. How do we make a system that rewards player input, can be simply understood at a glance from the player and is not abusable?

 

I'm not sure if i'll finish today as I have to do a class review on abilities (to organize thoughts) and i've already added a section to the proposal.

[Kjaamor]

In regards to Kjaamor's comment:  The whole purpose of the beta is to point out and suggest solutions to broken mechanics, which is exactly what Sensuki is doing.  If you disagree that the current implementation is not broken, that's one thing -- I disagree, but that happens -- but it appears that your position is "It's broken, but I'm sure Obsidian knows about it and will fix it in some mysterious way that I don't care to speculate about, but will be perfect in all respects".  If that is your position, then I have to wonder why you are participating in Backer Beta discussions at all.

 

I await clarification from the man himself before we're both guilty of putting words in his mouth, but my understanding of Sensuki's position is that he feels that the engagement system is, within the reasonable time frame of PoE's completion, irreparably broken and would best be removed entirely and replaced with the movement mechanics of the IE games.

 

The fundamental position of me and Sensuki - or at very least between me and Sensuki - is that I believe that kiting in the IE games was a poor mechanic that should be ironed out, while he believes that it is one of the defining aspects of the IE games and something that PoE owes itself to emulate. We both believe in reasonable movement within combat, we both believe that at present the engagement system is broken.

 

Potential improvements to the system have been offered in other threads, but this is besides the point. My position on the matter is that anti-solutions - that is refusing to innovate and simply copying the IE games verbatim rather than trying to fix their issues and improve upon them - should not be lauded and that PoE has to be assessed ultimately on its own merits and not judged by simply how closely it replicates the IE games. Sensuki might like what ultimately boils down to an IWD mod, you might like it, and hell I would almost certainly love it, but the press and general public would tear it apart and that severely limits the scope for future party-based RPGs. I've no mind to wait another ten years for them after this.

[Doppelschwert]

 

Yuniko: I just tried it on your last post. You like something, and then to the right of that like there is an X and it says "Unlike", and when I clicked that, my like on your post disappeared. It's in the lower right corner of the post.

 

EDIT: It's not an "X - it's just my forum graphics getting messed up again.

I tried it with yours and it worked, but it's not appearing for this one :S I think it's permenately liked. Thanks for all the help!

 

 

There is an easy rule how this works. You can like/unlike stuff as long as you want until you leave the current page, then it's permanently saved.

 

On topic:

Maybe the patch this week will offer some new insight into engagement. Have you asked josh directly about engagement at the SA-forums, sensuki?

[Lord Wafflebum]

Wow, this got crazy while I was gone.

 

So, I was able to find some time last night to play and I used a kind of hybrid of Sensuki tactics and Shevek tactics on Easy. Playing as a barbarian I was able to get through most battles without too much difficulty as long as I micromanaged party actions and used pause more intelligently.

 

I'll concede my initial argument that combat is too difficult. While initially difficult, it became much more manageable after some training videos from those active here on the forums. That said, combat isn't fun. It feels like a series of tedious chores to advance the storyline. Frankly, I don't have any specific ideas on how to make it better. Even though I feel confident enough to try this on harder difficulties, I still prefer playing on Easy. 

 

I guess my preference now, in place on lessening encounter difficulty, would be to reduce the amount of combat management. Shevek did an exceptional job of helping me build a relatively passive party, but it wasn't the party I wanted to play. I want to play a paladin (I know it's broken and I need to wait for it to be fixed), but when the full release comes out I want to have party members with me I like, not the ones I necessarily need. 

 

I'm far less angry with the game now, but I am annoyed that on Easy difficulty I still require an overly specific party build to get through the game. I fully believe that on Easy mode ANY party build should be viable. I realize Shevek will likely take issue with that, but that's what would be the most fun for me.