Thoughts from a casual gamer

[nipsen]

 

Yes, you're asked to make tactical and strategical choices. What a truly terrible thing to do in a game that's trying to be about tactical and strategical combat.

There aren't many tactical choices to be made in PE combat. There's a lot of trap choices though - two of those are moving, and selecting abilities related to engagement.

 

So let me get this straight. The last time you and Matt, and the rest of the regulars, entertained and regaled us all with fanciful stories about Obsidian misadventures - you were die hard pen and paper role-playing gamers, who literally think in AD&D rulesets when planning a trip to the mall. There is no tactical choice too hard, no problem that can't be solved by random chance!

 

And would therefore have a select few hundreds of "natural" objections to how Pillars of Eternity was not turn-based enough, and not tactical enough - not mathematically /balanced/ enough. And that experience rewards should evidently be done in a certain way, as it was done in AD&D. Indeed, the mere thought of doing something different than AD&D was unthinkable.

 

But now the argument you have is that any choice you can make that doesn't instantly benefit you - is a tactical trap. Because today, you are apparently a die hard DOTA and Starcraft player, and all games should evidently have combat where you really have no way to make bad choices, or good choices. Because that's just how games should be.

 

And this conversion happens overnight.

 

It would be hilarious, if it wasn't for the fact that Obsidian and Paradox Q&A really took stuff like this on board. And Obsidian made serious changes to their designs - because of crap feedback like this, washed through Q&A folks desperate to prove their job is valuable.

[Jon of the Wired]

 

The Rogue's Escape ability, anything that stuns or knocks down an enemy (Knock Down, Repulsing Seal, Mental Binding, plenty of others), the Priest spell Withdraw, the Fighter's Into the Fray power, powers that dramatically increase Deflection like Arcane Veil can help a lot. I'm sure there're lots of others, I'm not even going to try to make an exhaustive list.

 

So I should hold onto those powers like knockdown for times when my fighter's health is low and for disengagement attacks. Because if I used knockdown earlier in an encounter and have no way of escaping later, then my fighter could be screwed. And if I decide to not have a Priest in my party? I'm not asking for an exhaustive list, I only asked since you said there were 'plenty of ways' to do so.

 

 

Yes, you should absolutely try to use powers at the optimal time, instead of just blowing your load as soon as combat starts. The fact that there are better and worse times to use powers it what makes them interesting.

 

A Priest is not required. Of the seven powers I mentioned, only two are Priest spells. I think seven different powers does count as "plenty of ways", but if you disagree, I can always list a few more. There's Barbaric Shout, Nature's Terror, and two Ryngrim's spells that all terrify, Mind Wave, Silent Scream, Overwhelming Rage, Relentless Storm, and Stunning Blow which all stun, Pillar of Faith, Takedown, Slicken, and Clear Out which all knock enemies prone, there's Dimensional Shift, there's Puppet Master, Ringleader, and Whisper of Treason that all dominate or charm, Eyestrike which blinds. That's another eighteen, for a total of twenty-five powers that can help you avoid disengagement attacks, and I only stopped because I got bored.

[redneckdevil]

Im gonna go on record and hold on....putting on my flame resist suit....and say that i am enjoying and satisfied with how combat is atm.

[Lord Wafflebum]

Im gonna go on record and hold on....putting on my flame resist suit....and say that i am enjoying and satisfied with how combat is atm.

And you're not alone. What this thread was originally about was the difficulty or management of combat on Easy difficulty. The conversation unfortunately devolved into an argument about combat mechanics. It was illuminating for awhile to get a basic idea of pros/cons from different perspectives, but it has mostly become silly at this point.

 

From what I've been able to gather it's become a matter of play preference. Overall the general consensus is that combat needs some balancing out, and the systems in place will work more smoothly once said balancing is done. I have no idea personally, but I'm going to hope that's the case. If Sensuki is correct and engagement needs to be scrapped entirely to achieve a better combat flow then I worry about the game having enough QA time before release. So, I say let's all just hope Shevek is right, balance is king, and we have plenty of time to help polish the game before full release.

[Shallow]

Wouldn't adding another (or two) easier difficulty levels be the simplest solution to easy being to hard? The only things I've heard about engagement that makes it sound bad to me is that enemy AI apparently won't ever seize an opportunity to get at your back line if it's engaged, and that any movement will cause disengagement attacks, not just moving away from the guys you're fighting.

[Lord Wafflebum]

As I found out the difficulty of Easy is actually ok; it's the amount of party management that makes it difficult if you are not playing a with a party that has primarily passive combat abilities.

 

I'm not thrilled with the way engagement currently works, but I assume with some tweaking it can be made to work better. I'm by no means a programmer so I can't be sure, but it doesn't seem so bad it can't be made to function more effectively.

[Mr. Magniloquent]

 

Im gonna go on record and hold on....putting on my flame resist suit....and say that i am enjoying and satisfied with how combat is atm.

And you're not alone. What this thread was originally about was the difficulty or management of combat on Easy difficulty. The conversation unfortunately devolved into an argument about combat mechanics. It was illuminating for awhile to get a basic idea of pros/cons from different perspectives, but it has mostly become silly at this point.

 

 

.....I had some free time, so I got a good gaming session in today. I cleared the whole Dyrford area, and combat was smooth and joyful. My characters hardly ever interrupted my commands, so combat felt cohesive and tactical. Does it need tweaking? Absolutely. They need to law out a master map of all abilities and chart them in accordance to their relative effects and power so that their timings can be balanced optimally. That's not really that much work to do. This system is working (less than ideally), but working. It will improve, and combat shall be glorious.

 

That's a quote from myself in the "Invisible Combat Round" thread. Overall combat that does not regard spell casting/ability use is pretty good. The fundamentals are there. Some aspects need more tweaking than others, like engagement, but otherwise it's not bad. Where combat begins to botch itself is when spell casting and abilities enter the equation. Even still, that can be fixed. What is really the question, is whether Obsidian considers anything wrong with the current setup. That's a major concern of mine right now.

[Captain Shrek]

As I found out the difficulty of Easy is actually ok; it's the amount of party management that makes it difficult if you are not playing a with a party that has primarily passive combat abilities.

 

I'm not thrilled with the way engagement currently works, but I assume with some tweaking it can be made to work better. I'm by no means a programmer so I can't be sure, but it doesn't seem so bad it can't be made to function more effectively.

 

 

My overall verdict is: Slowdown movement and animation speed. Remove some of the superfluous mechanics. And bingo! The game is good to go. I think it is playable right now as it is. But requires some annoying micro which is really not tactical, unless you build a party on Shevek's suggestions. 

[light487]

I'm sure it's all been said already.. but I'm a casual gamer too and I find the combat both good and bad. At times I find it absolutely confusing and no idea what is going on and others I find it really engaging. I think that having party members with many skills and talents from the outset, since it's the beta and we need to test, is part of the problem. Obviously when you first start out, you should have limited skillsets and so you don't have so many options available to confuse things.. but as it is, I find the whole thing a bit of a mess being thrown in the deep end with so many skills and talents to play with.

 

It seems I need to pause combat after every round to be effective and that means to me that the game's encounter design is incorrect for RealTimeWithPause but better suited to TurnBased. 

 

I may have missed it in the interface but what made BG and similar shine for me, as a casual gamer, is the scripts for the characters. Are there scripts for the AI characters in there somewhere?

[Lord Wafflebum]

I'm sure it's all been said already.. but I'm a casual gamer too and I find the combat both good and bad. At times I find it absolutely confusing and no idea what is going on and others I find it really engaging. I think that having party members with many skills and talents from the outset, since it's the beta and we need to test, is part of the problem. Obviously when you first start out, you should have limited skillsets and so you don't have so many options available to confuse things.. but as it is, I find the whole thing a bit of a mess being thrown in the deep end with so many skills and talents to play with.

 

It seems I need to pause combat after every round to be effective and that means to me that the game's encounter design is incorrect for RealTimeWithPause but better suited to TurnBased. 

 

I may have missed it in the interface but what made BG and similar shine for me, as a casual gamer, is the scripts for the characters. Are there scripts for the AI characters in there somewhere?

I, too, would love that. AI scripts were the only thing that made Dragon Age Origins playable for me. However, I don't know. If they're in the beta I have not found them, but one of the forum full-timers will likely know if they are supposed to be in the pipeline or not. My guess would be no, because I believe PoE is feature locked.

[Leferd]

In yesterday's twitch-stream, Josh Sawyer stated that they would not be including AI party scripts for release as it would be (and I'm paraphrasing based on memory) too daunting a task for the current resources they have left to allocate.

[Lord Wafflebum]

In yesterday's twitch-stream, Josh Sawyer stated that they would not be including AI party scripts for release as it would be (and I'm paraphrasing based on memory) too daunting a task for the current resources they have left to allocate.

Thanks! Good to know.

[Lephys]

There aren't many tactical choices to be made in PE combat. There's a lot of trap choices though - two of those are moving, and selecting abilities related to engagement.

Without a doubt, moving shouldn't be a trap choice. I can go hunt down quotes to be absolutely sure, but I'm fairly certain the initial presentation of engagement gave the idea that "disengagement" entailed more than mere movement. It was all "if you move outside of an engagement circle, you get hit." If the circle's ALWAYS going to be so small that you can't even move anywhere without taking a hit, then what's the point in even having circles and ranges? Might as well just forego all that code and have "if you move, you get AoO'd."

 

I'm in favor of the idea of engagement, but it definitely needs to be changed from the way it's currently implemented.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

Is that problematic in your eyes?

 

No doubt it's not problematic for you? Limiting yourself to using an ability for that hypothetical retreat that might never come?

[Hiro Protagonist II]

Yes, you're asked to make tactical and strategical choices. What a truly terrible thing to do in a game that's trying to be about tactical and strategical combat.

 

So explain to me how it's tactical and strategic to use knockdown against multiple enemies in melee engagement with your fighter to retreat? Perhaps you could for once give an explanation instead of your usual stupid comments.

[Quetzalcoatl]

 

Yes, you're asked to make tactical and strategical choices. What a truly terrible thing to do in a game that's trying to be about tactical and strategical combat.

 

So explain to me how it's tactical and strategic to use knockdown against multiple enemies in melee engagement with your fighter to retreat? Perhaps you could for once give an explanation instead of your usual stupid comments.

You might want to look at what you wrote, which is what I was replying to:

 

So I should hold onto those powers like knockdown for times when my fighter's health is low and for disengagement attacks. Because if I used knockdown earlier in an encounter and have no way of escaping later, then my fighter could be screwed. And if I decide to not have a Priest in my party?

If your point was that there are no choices to be made, you chose a rather bizarre and schrizophrenic way of putting it, since this post seems to indicate the opposite.

Edited November 14, 2014 by Quetzalcoatl

[Doppelschwert]

 

Is that problematic in your eyes?

 

No doubt it's not problematic for you? Limiting yourself to using an ability for that hypothetical retreat that might never come?

 

 

I think that's the part where I'm supposed to make a tactical decision of whether there may be an actual risk that I need the ability for or not. I can spam it at the beginning and get the fighter done sooner, but if it doesn't work I may be in trouble. Or I may hold on to it, and use it if I need to or spam it when I'm already winning to mitigate some health loss, which may be suboptimal in the long run.

It's not immediately clear to me what's the best course to take in general, and that is probably a good thing from a tactical point of view.

 

I asked my questions because I'm curious about your reasons, and I still am.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

 

You might want to look at what you wrote, which is what I was replying to:

 

If your point was that there are no choices to be made, you chose a rather bizarre and schrizophrenic way of putting it, since this post seems to indicate the opposite. 

 

I never said there was no choices to be made. I asked what those 'plenty of ways' were and later responded with the Fighter. Considering a lot of those ways Jon of the Wired mentioned are class specific. eg. Whisper of Treason isn't for a Fighter. How do I use that for a Fighter? I asked how my Fighter would retreat if he had already used knockdown earlier in the encounter and doesn't have it and classes (like the Priest as an example) aren't in my party?

 

No, sounds like you chose a rather bizarre and schizophrenic way of responding. I know it's kind of hard to grasp comprehension.

Edited November 15, 2014 by Hiro Protagonist II

[Hiro Protagonist II]

I think that's the part where I'm supposed to make a tactical decision of whether there may be an actual risk that I need the ability for or not. I can spam it at the beginning and get the fighter done sooner, but if it doesn't work I may be in trouble. Or I may hold on to it, and use it if I need to or spam it when I'm already winning to mitigate some health loss, which may be suboptimal in the long run.

It's not immediately clear to me what's the best course to take in general, and that is probably a good thing from a tactical point of view.

 

I asked my questions because I'm curious about your reasons, and I still am.

 

Bold underline emphasis. And this is where the whole point comes down to. If you use those spells/abilities earlier in the encounter because it's not immediately clear that you should save them for later for a hypothetical retreat, then you could open yourself up to problems later in the encounter as you have very limited or probably no way of retreating for a character. And you're okay with this on the EASY setting. After all this is the thread from a casual gamer.

[light487]

In yesterday's twitch-stream, Josh Sawyer stated that they would not be including AI party scripts for release as it would be (and I'm paraphrasing based on memory) too daunting a task for the current resources they have left to allocate.

 

Well that's a crying shame. Hopefully it is something they considering adding down the line as this is an essential feature for many of us to truly enjoy the game without micromanaging every character's, every move.

[Shevek]

The game does not need AI scripts for party members to avoid excessive micro managing.

[light487]

So if there's no AI scripts.. do party members auto-fight in the style of your choosing then? Or do you need to give them orders based on the situation of the encounter? Do rangers behave automatically like rangers? Do mages behave automatically like mages? and so on?

[Lephys]

 

It's not immediately clear to me what's the best course to take in general, and that is probably a good thing from a tactical point of view.

 

I asked my questions because I'm curious about your reasons, and I still am.

 

Bold underline emphasis. And this is where the whole point comes down to. If you use those spells/abilities earlier in the encounter because it's not immediately clear that you should save them for later for a hypothetical retreat, then you could open yourself up to problems later in the encounter as you have very limited or probably no way of retreating for a character.

 

I'm pretty sure limited information sort of goes hand in hand with the idea of tactics.

 

"Sir, the enemy!"

"Alright, men! Go ahead and use the Definitely-Going-To-Win formation, because I know that nothing dynamic is going to occur on the battlefield that would render this pre-battle decision folly!"

[Lord Wafflebum]

The game does not need AI scripts for party members to avoid excessive micro managing.

Need? No, probably not. I still want it though- not that I can have it...

[Hiro Protagonist II]

I'm pretty sure limited information sort of goes hand in hand with the idea of tactics.

 

"Sir, the enemy!"

"Alright, men! Go ahead and use the Definitely-Going-To-Win formation, because I know that nothing dynamic is going to occur on the battlefield that would render this pre-battle decision folly!"

 

Never said that at all. But go right ahead Lephys and quote out of context like you usually do. Interesting that you ignore what I said about the Fighter and apparently there's 'plenty of ways' for that Fighter to retreat. Still haven't seen the 'plenty of ways' with the Fighters own abilities. Considering how you may have used those abilities during an encounter due to tactical reasons. Perhaps you can try actually playing the game and tell us with your experience? That would be nice to see.

Edited November 15, 2014 by Hiro Protagonist II