Stop Right Now Thankyou Very Much

[Hormalakh]

When are we going to see a reply to this thread by a developer ? Engagement has been discused over and over and we need to know how OE views our views.

 

the last time an answer was given, it was stated that the engagement mechanic would not be taken out (not in a million years). just that it would be tweaked and changes would be made to make it "better."

 

I'm paraphrasing, of course.

Edited December 4, 2014 by Hormalakh

[Chilloutman]

Look - if you want to fix this problem, you don't come up with a new solution and hope for the best. You look at what other games have done to solve this problem. Not a single Real-time game uses such a mechanic to solve the melee/ranged problem. They use other mechanics. CC abilities, AI. Dota2 has an intuitive turn rate mechanic that basically makes it extremely difficult to kite. And it lacks all this extra hubbub.

 

Real-time solutions for a real-time game.

Yeah right, I am used to pause in middle of battle in DotA to assign commands to all characters under my command. Seems like you probably playing only with bots xD.

 

You dont come up with new solutions? you just copy other games? LOL

 

but turn rate is actually not bad idea

Edited December 4, 2014 by Chilloutman

[Hormalakh]

Metaphor: A construction site, and the workers are building a house. They've placed some doors in it, but they are creaking and the door knobs aren't screwed on entirely. Is it a test door, or is it an architectural flaw in the door frame?

 

Do you build a new door and door frame, or do you oil the hinges and screw on the knobs tighter? What takes most time?

 

The engagement mechanic is "recreating the wheel." When there are other solutions that have been used in the past, why start fresh with a totally un-tested, new approach?

[Hormalakh]

 

Look - if you want to fix this problem, you don't come up with a new solution and hope for the best. You look at what other games have done to solve this problem. Not a single Real-time game uses such a mechanic to solve the melee/ranged problem. They use other mechanics. CC abilities, AI. Dota2 has an intuitive turn rate mechanic that basically makes it extremely difficult to kite. And it lacks all this extra hubbub.

 

Real-time solutions for a real-time game.

Yeah right, I am used to pause in middle of battle in DotA to assign commands to all characters under my command. Seems like you probably playing only with bots xD.

 

You dont come up with new solutions? you just copy other games? LOL

 

but turn rate is actually not bad idea

 

the point isn't that dota doesn't allow you to pause.

 

I don't want this game to be DoTA, believe it or not. But I think that solutions should be taken from wherever they make the most sense.

 

Like it or hate it, the games that are intuitive in their feel for tactical combat always are more fun to play. You don't need a whole lot to understand how movement and positioning work in games like DoTA2. Why shouldn't the developers utilize those mechanics in their games? Because the word RTS offends you? Not a good reason.

[Hormalakh]

So, what is the alternative to engagement? All I see are "stupid AI that attacks whatever is closest/most recent to attack it/etc" or "fighters have no special way to protect the backline."

 

I understand if the answer is just "there aren't resources to fix it", but it looks like many of you don't even support the general concept of melee stickiness at all.

 

Solutions include, but are not limited to, crowd control abilities (knockdown), physical blocking, paying attention to when an enemy is bum-rushing your back line to move your party members back until your melee gets that stun off. Good AI by the computer to do the same thing (hell, the computer should know that you're moving your characters to the back - all it would take is a line like "if they are positioning a character near a ranged opponent or squishy opponent AND a melee ally is close by, move squishy opponent back, ask ally to drop a stun/cc ability; focus down on squishy guy).

Edited December 4, 2014 by Hormalakh

[Trodat]

 

Look - if you want to fix this problem, you don't come up with a new solution and hope for the best. You look at what other games have done to solve this problem. Not a single Real-time game uses such a mechanic to solve the melee/ranged problem. They use other mechanics. CC abilities, AI. Dota2 has an intuitive turn rate mechanic that basically makes it extremely difficult to kite. And it lacks all this extra hubbub.

 

Real-time solutions for a real-time game.

 

 

For some strange reason I got this feeling that Obsidian (Sawyer) are not that familiar with Dota and it's mechanics.

Edited December 4, 2014 by Trodat

[Rabain]

What would be the problem with enemies just checking if they are engaged, if the original target is nearest enemy and if not attack nearest enemy?  This way they would get no Disengagement attack as they would just stop to attack the nearest enemy instead of passing through its engagement area and suffering an attack.  The player would have to make sure the nearest party member was capable of taking that attack, be tanky, isn't that what we want?  

 

Alternatively be immune to Disengagement attacks until you are in melee range of your original engaged target.

 

Alternatively only activate Disengagement attacks if Engaged for X seconds with the same target or if below X health already (simulating the weakened reaction to blocking an attack while trying to retreat from melee).

 

I don't know if there are Disengagement abilities currently for any class but I think there should be, especially for melee.  Melee should know how to retreat from combat, push your opponent or fake an attack and step back out of range, turn and flee.  That can be simulated easily with some kind of Disengage ability but I guess that isn't really related to engaging in the first place.

[Hormalakh]

 

 

Look - if you want to fix this problem, you don't come up with a new solution and hope for the best. You look at what other games have done to solve this problem. Not a single Real-time game uses such a mechanic to solve the melee/ranged problem. They use other mechanics. CC abilities, AI. Dota2 has an intuitive turn rate mechanic that basically makes it extremely difficult to kite. And it lacks all this extra hubbub.

 

Real-time solutions for a real-time game.

 

 

For some strange reason I got this feeling that Obsidian (Sawyer) are not that familiar with Dota and it's mechanics.

 

 

Josh Sawyer has played League of Legends before, though he doesn't play it regularly. Other developers on the team do play it though. I can't speak for Dota.

 

But the point wasn't "DoTA." The point was that they need to look at real-time games - hell even IE games for solutions. I remember when they first pitched this game to us, one of their talking points was that since this is a computer game, they would be utilizing computer technology to move away from the hybrid real-time/turn-based model that IE had and to move closer to a more real-time game with "decimals!" and "complex math!" Seems that this only applied to how damage was applied, but nothing else.

 

This game would be very different, I believe, if a few savvy RTS developers were in the mix when developing a real-time tactical combat game.

Edited December 4, 2014 by Hormalakh

[Osvir]

What I'm saying is... how much time has Obsidian spent on this mechanic, and how much do they have left on it? Is it wise to introduce a new way, and tune that instead?

There's a Swedish historic poet, famous for his witty poems, but also for the jokes that came after him:

A Russian, a Finnish guy and Bellman were competing who could swim over the sea from Sweden to Finland. The Russian started, he got 1/4th of the way, and drowned, the Finnish guy got 2/4ths of the way, and drowned. When Bellman was up for it, he got 2/4th of the way, huffed and puffed, tired from the swimming, he decided to turn around.

The sentiment: Obsidian has worked on this system for quite a while, and it is probably expected to behave as bug-free and exploit-free as possible in the final product, should they drop all that work, without seeing the end of the tunnel, or take a tour around the tunnel that may or may not be better, in the end. I don't know, so I'm just reflecting~

That's what I want to know, is Obsidian too far out on the sea that it'd be even more of a waste for them to revert and swim back to shore? Or is Sensuki's ideas a nearby island that they can board and rest for a bit? And does this rest on this island compromise the deadline they themselves expect, and will they deliver a better or worse system by resting on this island?

Another one, and probably the final one:
The train is on the train-tracks, and comes up to an intersection, should it take the turn unknowingly of where the stop is, or continue on the initially intended path to its original destination?

[Hormalakh]

What I'm saying is... how much time has Obsidian spent on this mechanic, and how much do they have left on it? Is it wise to introduce a new way, and tune that instead?

 

Yes. Yes, it is. They tried their new approach and it didn't work like they thought it did. It's not wise to keep bashing a square block in a round hole if it didn't fit the first time.

 

I'm not advocating that they try a totally new, fresh approach from scratch. I'm saying that if they fell back to "how IE did it, even with the kiting" they've still made an improvement. At the very least, we all knew and loved that old system. If they want to "evolve" that system, then they should look at the past decade in real-time games and the advanced made in THAT field (not turn-based D&D) for a real-time problem they're having (and kiting is a real-time problem, or bum-rushing). You don't have those problems in a point-based, turn-based system.

[Osvir]

 

What I'm saying is... how much time has Obsidian spent on this mechanic, and how much do they have left on it? Is it wise to introduce a new way, and tune that instead?

 

Yes. Yes, it is. They tried their new approach and it didn't work like they thought it did. It's not wise to keep bashing a square block in a round hole if it didn't fit the first time.

Insider information? Or have I missed a statement (or forgotten)?

[Hormalakh]

What part? That the engagement mechanic doesn't work? Look at the first page for that. Square block in round peg? That's an idiom/saying (like your Swedish sayings).

 

That it's wise? Well, the priest of Oghma says, "Wisdom is only possessed by the learned."

[Shevek]

Guys, lets keep this in perspective. This has been debated to death. The devs have seen the posts already. The only new factor is this exploit. That is the only thing the devs give a darn about and its in the first few posts of this thread.

 

I dont think the devs would rip out an entire mechanic they have worked on for over a year and designed a large set of abilities and talents around, when they can fix this single exploit in a couple afternoons, do you?

[Seari]

I don't give a **** about the "exploits". This mechanic is cancer, and it needs to be cut out.

[Hormalakh]

It's not just the exploit that's the problem with engagement.

 

It actually makes combat less fun. Having actually had a chance to play the game with this newest beta, engagement basically comes down to a game of tag. Once you're tagged, you stay where you are until the battle is over. Tactical positioning is now only something you think about at the beginning of battle. it is very frustrating that once you get "tagged" by an opponent, you're basically stuck there. no amount of "escaping" or anything will save you. the engagement mechanic also screws up a lot of the actions you try to give your characters because of how it's actually implemented.

what happens is that as soon as you're engaged, your last command is canceled and you are automatically "aggro-ed." So your character suddenly auto-attacks the engager. And then if you try to run away, you're hit by a AoO and you get interrupted (so you can't run away). This gives your opponent time to engage you again. And the cycle repeats itself, until you tell yourself, "well, if I'm going to go down, I might as well hurt the guy."

I've tried using my thief to scout ahead and many times if he gets spotted, that's it. He's dead. His escape ability really doesn't give him much of a chance of running away if he's engaged by more than one guy. Not much of an escape if you ask me.

You do lose a lot of the positioning and tactical movement that happened in IE games during combat. Basically, positioning in this game all comes down to initial positioning. You set up your pieces where you want (with scouting or whatever) and you just stay there.

 

I mean look back to Josh Sawyer and Jesse Cox (the twitch marathon)- the poor guy had to keep asking Josh Sawyer (I counted at least three times) whether he could move his guy. And josh kept telling the dude "no that's a bad idea." By the end Jesse was basically just asking Josh what to do next because at least I felt he had no idea what was going on. And it's not just a matter of UI either. It's intuitive to want to move your player back when he's fragile and level 2 and getting attacked by a wolf/bear/group of bandits. It might not be the best idea, but at least its doable and you don't suddenly just die because the disengagement attacks finished you off.

Edited December 4, 2014 by Hormalakh

[Osvir]

I consider the Beta to be a work in progress product Hormalakh. Stuff that I could do a couple of builds ago I can't do, overpowered or some bug things. The gameplay and general playability even feels better, more stable, than a couple of builds ago. Because often times I couldn't even play the game in earlier builds due to crashing or major lag.

In this build, examples:
There's a water sound, as if you're walking on water, on solid ground in the Skaen Temple (or was it the Caverns? I should check that out). Stuff is improved each build, and I might assuming things, but I feel the Backer Beta is holding out on us greatly. Obsidian's priority number one should be to develop the real thing based on their own wisdom and experience.

Backer Beta:
The Backer Beta feels like fan-service, we get in on it early, get to feel gameplay and get to hunt for some bugs, experience narrative and a side-quest area in the Dyrford, leave feedback and discuss/debate. But it might not be the first thing to stablize and update. Isn't the Backer Beta a separate work-project? Now, Public Beta is important to any company, but, in terms of in-office employees and time spent, wouldn't they potentially add to their work force on the actual game if they dropped the Beta completely after a certain stable enough Build? Is the Beta area we play being designed the same in the real thing? Will Medreth's group even be there, Nyfre? In the real thing, is the code running better across the board? Less bugs?

The real thing:
Speaking of Beta & real thing, and comparing to Jesse Cox playthrough (and considering stability). It would look like it runs better.

Jesse Cox playthrough looked much more fluid in my opinion, than what I experience in the Beta. Combat, movement, spell casting. Lots of the stuff looks to work better in their own build. Granted, the game is probably designed to function the best, at the moment, for their machines. It looks way more stable.

So... well... yeah. I think it'll just become better and better

I didn't play Divinity: Original Sin during Early Access much, but I jumped in once a month or so, and everytime I was shocked by how much it had changed. I had a bit of a moment like that when this v364 was released :D it's improving everyone! :D

That's why I want to be careful with prejudice against the vision of this system, because frankly I don't know 100% yet what it's like when finished. I can presume, but not be certain. Which obviously is because it is a work in progress product altogether. That's the reason why I am saying "I like it!" so vaguely, because I want to see how it'll feel when it's improved.

If Sensuki could pull out a no removal system out of v364, how come he wouldn't be able to do the same thing for v483?

Edited December 4, 2014 by Osvir

[Hormalakh]

Being able to regroup by momentarily disengaging (pulling back) and getting healed up before going back into battle should be a viable strategy. You can't reliably do that in this game. You just have to hope that while your engaged character is getting beat on, you can pull off a "heal endurance" spell before s/he gets downed. 

[Hormalakh]

I consider the Beta to be a work in progress product  ...

That's why I want to be careful with prejudice against the vision of this system, because frankly I don't know 100% yet. Which obviously is because it is a work in progress product altogether. That's the reason why I am saying "I like it!" so vaguely, because I want to see how it'll feel when it's improved.

 

If Sensuki could pull out a no removal system out of v364, how come he wouldn't be able to do the same thing for v483?

 

if you have been following along, there have been major issues with engagement in every single one of the beta versions. first it had to do with long-range disengagement attacks (see cubiq for that one), then people were dying left and right and didn't know why (see casual gamer redux for that), now we've got this thing. who knows what's next.

 

frankly I see your optimism, but I am much more likely to accept sensuki's analysis of the matter. the dudes been beta-testing like crazy and has a very strong understanding of the system. and when he says that the game is less tactical than without the system, I seriously consider that sentiment. And I see that he's right. Many of us have played the beta long enough to notice the little differences and things that are much much harder to pull off. yes, some of it is good, but a majority of it is bad. and it's less fun and just more frustrating.

 

there are better ways of doing this.

 

blind optimism is willful ignorance of the problem. engagement is less tactical, less fun, more time consuming, bug-laden, more finicky, unnecessarily complex, and ultimately not suitable for a real-time combat game.

Edited December 4, 2014 by Hormalakh

[Hormalakh]

of course, I don't expect that these arguments will convince everyone. This is, after-all, my own impression of the system.

 

But I do challenge everyone to take a moment and use a critical eye towards the mechanics. Nobody is trying to downplay all the hard work that the developers have put in to making this game. Everyone is appreciative of the risk and challenge they took on by making this game.

 

This conversation really isn't about ego or saying who's right and who's wrong. It's about making a better game. It's about what kickstarter was supposed to be about from the beginning - getting feedback from the players and ultimately making changes based on that feedback.

 

At the end of the day, who's right or who's wrong really doesn't matter. What matters is that in 5-10 years down the line, will this game fall in the category of "games I wish I could play again for the first time" or "games that were good enough for what they were."

Edited December 4, 2014 by Hormalakh

[Shevek]

This is not helpful. There is one piece of new information in this thread. Everything else is a retread of old threads and simply not relevant to this discussion.

[Captain Shrek]

It's not just the exploit that's the problem with engagement.

 

It actually makes combat less fun. 

 

 

If you find the combat more fun just by taking out the engagement mechanics, then something is very wrong with you. 

[Chilloutman]

Why on Earth do you people want to take 'features' from real time games. This is real time with pause. Heck in BG or IWD I spend more time in paused mode than in real time. To me it feels you have problems because you dont pause enough and then make mistakes in fast paced battle where its expected from you to control multiple characters with a lot of ablilities. If you are unnable to understand that your character is engaged and its not best idea to just turn your back on attacker and flee its problem with your expectation/gamestyle, not with mechanic. It is easy for me to disengaged if I really want, all you have to do is stun your opponent and you are free to go (granted, if you are engaged by 3 enemies than its your tactical fault and you have to deal with it) IE feel != realtime strategy or moba game) RTS - micromanagement of multiple units with very limited amount of abilities with macromanagement of base and resources Moba - controling single character with limited amout of abilities in fast paced multiplayer environment. Non of those have anything to do with pausable RPG (even if its real time with pause) Pause is your strategic instrument to not die horribly

Edited December 4, 2014 by Chilloutman

[Seari]

Ever heard of formatting? I am not reading that ****.

[Trodat]

If you are unnable to understand that your character is engaged and its not best idea to just turn your back on attacker and flee its problem with your expectation/gamestyle, not with mechanic.

 

This has nothing to do with the presented arguments and why the engagement mechanic sucks so much.

 

[Grotesque]

I can't afford to be an optimist at this point in development with a few more months until shipping.  And as someone already said, I would rather hope they put their resources in making pencil drawn items 2D art instead of trying to salvage a flawed mechanic.

 

Making combat feel static and not being able to adapt to new situations or making a tactical retreat without major penalties is not my idea of good design.