PoE - A game for Road Runner only? "Pausable Real Time Combat"

[Captain Shrek]

Err ahem. Can we get back on topic, here? 

[Gairnulf]

Gotta love it when the guys who are to be moderating a forum take part in rap battles. Oh well...

[Gfted1]

Yo, Im the big G1

and Im here to say

it sounds kinda silly

to complain about a game you wont play

 

.......haaaaay hooooooo

 

(I didn't even know I could rap!)

[Gairnulf]

Yo, Im the big G1

and Im here to say

it sounds kinda silly

to complain about a game you wont play

 

.......haaaaay hooooooo

 

(I didn't even know I could rap!)

That's nice, but I meant a rap battle as in a couple of guys exchanging insults. Monkey Island had this too actually.

[nipsen]

Err ahem. Can we get back on topic, here? 

..which was: random assumptions and opinion stated as fact?

 

What about not doing that, and at least attempting to show that this is not a gossip-forum for internet-princesses (in spite of the moderators encouraging that idea).

[Gairnulf]

On the topic, I think combat can be improved by "inflating" the casting/action preform times, under which I understand simultaneously increasing animation length (or if your prefer - decreasing animation speed) and increasing the 2/3 seconds for action preforming/casting, with both these increases being done in the same proportion, hence the "inflation". This will increase the pauses between various characters performing actions during a fight, and would make "combat speed" look very similiar to the IE games, the player will no longer suffer from information overflow during a battle, and the need to pause constantly will not be so acute. I'm sure the developers are already aware of what's wrong and we'll see improvements in the next beta build which should hopefully arrive on Wednesday or at the end of the week.

Edited November 18, 2014 by Gairnulf

[Lephys]

I think having a bit more control over ability queuing would help a lot. MAYBE some AI scripts. The biggest problem I've had is with making sure everyone's not standing around for precious seconds, and/or catching my BB Wizard before he auto-attacks again to get him to actually cast a spell, or the BB fighter to use a knockdown instead of swinging again, etc.

 

I'm sure slowing things down will help a bit, but you've still got asynchronous ability timings. Also, though, I'm not yet used to all the abilities, and typical enemies' defenses and whatnot. I'm sure familiarity helps with things a great deal.

[Gairnulf]

The biggest problem I've had is with making sure everyone's not standing around for precious seconds, and/or catching my BB Wizard before he auto-attacks again to get him to actually cast a spell, or the BB fighter to use a knockdown instead of swinging again, etc.

 

I'm sure slowing things down will help a bit, but you've still got asynchronous ability timings. Also, though, I'm not yet used to all the abilities, and typical enemies' defenses and whatnot. I'm sure familiarity helps with things a great deal.

All the things you list would be remedied exactly in the way I propose. It's an information problem, slowing down the information flow would make it easier to cope with in realtime for the user/player.

 

Ability timings are asynchronous in the IE games as well, they are just occuring at greater intervals and there are, in the IE games, more missed hits, and less spells and "pseudo-spells" (talents) being cast. This gives the illusion of things being slower paced (it is less frequent that something happens that attracts the player's attention), and more synchronized. In fact in the IE games during combat, 90% of the time a character is either hitting with a weapon (preforming the animation at least, whether he hits or no is another matter), or casting a spell, or moving. To prove what I'm saying, compare how often you pause during combat with a low level party in BG and with a higher level party in BGII - you will discover that the lower your THAC0, and the greater your (and the enemies') chance to score a hit, the more often you need to pause in order to keep up with the information flow. This is what is taken to an extreme in PoE, because the animations are too fast, and cooldowns are too short.

 

I'm not much of a mathematician, but the shorter the interval between actions, the less mutually synchronized they appear, because per second, you see more unsynchronized actions, and the ratio between synchronized and unsynchronized is strongly in favor of desynchronized. Increase the cooldown times twofold, and suddenly this ratio will change, you will have less frequent action animations, but the differences in seconds between them will be shorter, because the "animation time-to-cooldown time" ratio is changed. This is how the IE games' illusion of synchronized actions will return.

Edited November 18, 2014 by Gairnulf

[Lephys]

Well... I mean, in the IE games, they actually used rounds, right? So, the actions were quite literally synchronized. I realize that ability execution times still varied, but it was kinda like fireworks that all got their fuses lit at the same time. Honestly, seeing people swinging weapons when attacks weren't actually occurring was one of my least favorite things about the IE games. The very purpose of attack animations is to visually say to the player "an attack is occurring," so to throw in some extraneous ones just for kicks seems to be completely at odds with their purpose, if you ask me.

 

But, what you say makes sense. I was just clarifying that I was speaking to the actual synchronization of combat actions. You do have to give a round system credit for the fact that it does provide a pretty good pause-and-issue-orders metronome.

 

Also, though, I think it should be easier to change your action, mid-action. Many a time, I realize that I want my BB Wizard to cast some spell, but he's .0004 milliseconds into brandishing his wand to fire off another standard attack, so even though I've paused and said "Hey, man... cast this!", he waits until he's attacked, then recovered, THEN casts the spell. By which point in time it's sometimes too late because someone moved, or I need him to cast something else, etc.

 

That's the trouble I have with a round-based system. Everyone's still jogging around like maniacs for 6 seconds, THEN your abilities and spells go off. So, you still have to try and time your pauses and command-issuings to just before it's time for a round to go off. *shrug*

 

But, I do think general slowing of the combat pace will help a bit. Of course, it's a bell curve: at some point you're getting less benefit and more just-plain-slow combat.

[Gairnulf]

Well... I mean, in the IE games, they actually used rounds, right? So, the actions were quite literally synchronized. I realize that ability execution times still varied, but it was kinda like fireworks that all got their fuses lit at the same time.

That was what I thought too, until I tested that belief The best way to understand how it works is to start up a game and look at combat carefully, or just watch a video and pause it often enough. You'll see that both enemy and party npcs execute actions asynchronously and the interval between actions is less than 6 seconds. Definetly no "fuses lit at the same time". Try selecting your party and ordering them to attack a creature. You will see they will all pause for about a second (needed for the pathfinding system to calculate the path to the target) and they will rush at the target (if melee characters) with one character beginning his animation before the other. I think animations are deliberately started at different times, so that your party doesn't look like a selected and collectovely ordered batch of Age of Empires soldiers for example.

 

At the very least, the console should give you a hint that party members' actions occur in sequence. You can't have Khalid and Minsc preform hits at exactly the same time. There will always be a difference and the combat log will display one action after the other.

 

It's ironic how long we have been playing the IE games without noticing such things. I also thought IE games' battles were based on 6 second "turns" until recently.

 

In PoE on the other hand, actions begin immediately after the order is issued, and what causes desynchronisation between characters' melee attacks is the need for them to gang up on the enemy from different sides, so that they are all in melee range, and the fact that since two charcters can't occupy the same coordinates, one character will always have a little longer to travel if both are sent simultaneously to attack an enemy who resides in a third set of coordinates. This is what doesn't permit them to attack virtually simultaneously. Try this experiment in the beta: line up two archer party members so that they both have the same Medreth gang member within range and order them to attack. See if their animations won't play virtually simultaneously. Then try a similiar thing in an IE game. Or, with melee characters, put two or more characters around a neutral npc so that they are both/all in melee range, and then force-attack the npc. The synchronisation you'll see in PoE will be much better than in the IE game.

Edited November 18, 2014 by Gairnulf

[Sensuki]

No, the pause before movement is a random delay to de-synchronize the party movement so they don't look like a droid army. The delay is random between 0-10 frames.

 

Who attacks first / casts first depends on "Speed Factor" in the AD&D 2E games, and then after that attacks per round. The rounds are asynchronous though, they are individual for each unit, not global.

[IndiraLightfoot]

More importantly, the IE games revolved around and stayed true to the round system per se, so spells and attacks were measured in rounds, regardless of rounds revolving for each unit in an obviously asynchronous way, further enhanced by the speed factor in 2nd ed.

 

I wonder how big a difference there is between a stiletto stab and a big AoE spell and a 2H-sword hew.

For PoE, I have this weird feeling that the spell is cast instantly (despite the grimoire and the reading?), whereas a stiletto is super fast and the sword is slower. 

Or are they all instant, but the recovery times for them varies? 

Also, can they be interrupted?

Edited November 18, 2014 by IndiraLightfoot

[Sensuki]

Stiletto 0.66s animation time, 0.66s recovery time base (which will be higher in the upcoming patch)

Greatsword 1.0s animation time, 2.0s recovery time base (once again, will be higher in the upcoming patch)
AoE spell could either be the same speed as a greatsword swing or 3.0 s cast time, 3.0s recovery time base (higher in the latest patch)

 

yes they can be interrupted

Edited November 18, 2014 by Sensuki

[IndiraLightfoot]

More or less as I expected, then. Although, when in battle, everything feels very fast, of course. Especially when I cast spells - many of them seem to go off right off the bat.

[Captain Shrek]

What would be a sensible argument against absorbing the recovery time into animation time? Also, how about an argument against having such an *animation time only* game that is balanced for the game?

 

I hate the time in which chars stand there doing nothing. Same in IE games. 

[Sensuki]

They actually used to have animation time only and the game was like super super fast.

[Captain Shrek]

They actually used to have animation time only and the game was like super super fast.

 

Sure. So the task is to balance the animation time for each attack type/action type. 

[Sensuki]

It makes no difference whether there's recovery or not. It's pretty much the same thing.

[Captain Shrek]

It makes no difference whether there's recovery or not. It's pretty much the same thing.

 

It does make a visual and sensible difference. 

[Sensuki]

Nothing to do with balance though, which you stated was the reason for suggesting it

[Captain Shrek]

Nothing to do with balance though, which you stated was the reason for suggesting it

Nono. I meant "balance it" until it is reasonable. This eliminates the entire standing there doing nothing between blows and making the game look a bit realistic. The rounds from IE are gow anyway. So at least this will make the game look good. 

[archangel979]

Fast attacks would not be a problem if damage done was not so big. Or if most attacks were not a hit or graze. If they went back to miss/hit/critical system everyone would live longer even with smaller endurance numbers. And DT system would work better as it would not turn grazes into almost nothing (the problem being here that having big DT or small DT creates a too big of a difference in damage received since when not hit you will be grazed).

Edited November 18, 2014 by archangel979

[Captain Shrek]

Remove the DT-Graze-Endurance abomination trio.     All they do is reinforce each other.  

[Kjaamor]

This was pages back but only noticed it now.

 

 

Like Wanderon said, the opinions of the most vocal people are worth no more than the least vocal.

Logical fallacy at it's finest.

 

The voice that is least vocal is silent, you can't make a decision based on an opinion that never get's spoken.  They can only listen to the people who are actually talking.  I don't think asking them to fix blatant disengagement exploits is something that should be ignored.  I don't think when almost all people who are posting agree and say "combat is at least a little too fast" that they should ignore that.  I don't tell Obsidian how to do their job, I just make suggestions and trust that they will actually listen to good suggestions and fix the things (or at least try) that are obvious stand out issues. 

 

As for backers not being important?  Well slippery slope there.  No, they aren't developers.  Some of them actually understand things like design and combat flow etc etc.  I will never say Obsidian should design by committee and if you look at my posting history I am probably one of the over all most positive people saying "Give it time, Obsidian knows what they are doing" more often than not.  That said.... no backers = no game in the first place.  I am pretty sure that removes them from the level of "doesn't matter".

 

 

Accuses poster of logical fallacy.

 

Uses slippery slope argument.

[Lephys]

@Gairnulf:

 

Thanks for that info. I was not aware of that. I always played a mage when I got to play any of the IE games, and I typically just generally managed the rest of my party while I super micro-managed my mage, so I never noticed how asynchronized things were. I mean, I knew people didn't move and act and start casting at the exact same time, but I thought everyone had to wait until the same "tick" to be able to move/act again (even though they all went in slightly different orders and at different speeds, etc.).

 

So, yeah, I guess it's just the long "recovery time" in that that makes the difference. *Shrug*

 

What would be a sensible argument against absorbing the recovery time into animation time? Also, how about an argument against having such an *animation time only* game that is balanced for the game?

 

I hate the time in which chars stand there doing nothing. Same in IE games.

One thing that I prefer on an aesthetic level is to take that one-attack-per-several-seconds and split it up into smaller, lesser attacks that occur much more frequently, but end up with the same DPS, etc. So that, instead of just having people swing, then stand around for 3 seconds, or swing REALLLY slowly for that same interval, what you have is people going *swing, parry, thrust* in the same duration.

 

However, if you do that, unless it's just one attack with extraneous animation for visual feels, you have to recalculate and tune some things. I mean, if you split each regular attack into 3 (just for example... the exact numbers could obviously differ), you'd have to cut the base damage by 2/3, or everything would die 3 times as quickly. AND, if you did that, you'd have to adjust the DT average. So, I dunno... there's a lot to change with that. BUT, I actually prefer "regular" attacks to be more constant like in an actual fight. But, again, more from a "feels" standpoint, and less from an actual mechanics standpoint. Mechanically, it's a lot easier to do the more infrequent-yet-significant attacks.