SLOWED RECOVERY WHILE MOVING - NO THANKS

[Lephys]

I apologize, as I skipped to the end of this thread after reading the first page or so (I'm pressed for time today), but... slowed recovery time while moving, on principle, seems like redundant limitation. The whole point of recovery time is that you can only act so often. All the time you spend moving is already time you cannot act, since you can't move for 3 seconds straight AND take an action in the middle of that movement. That, and you already can't move freely when engagement is involved, so you already have restricted movement options (without penalties like getting a free hit on you).

 

I realize that, in complete isolation, slowed recovery while you're moving makes sense, and could even be an interesting abstraction for a mechanic. However, I feel that it's quite heavy-handed when placed on top of the other existing restrictions and limitations on PoE's combat.

 

I humbly suggest an alternative, if you feel there must be an impact from movement on action frequency (beyond being unable to act again so long as you aren't stopped):

 

A post-movement recovery time. You were jogging around just now? But you want to cast a spell? Well, once you stop, you won't be able to cast a spell until .25 seconds after you stopped. Firing a bow? You won't be able to actually aim and let loose an arrow until you stop, get your bearings for .5 seconds, THEN do so.

 

I'm pretty sure this came up before in earlier mechanics discussions. But, in light of this thread, I just wanted to pitch it again.

 

Recovery time is already an abstraction. Abstraction multiplied by abstraction just starts getting nonsensical.

[Adam Brennecke]

Sorry, the recovery is at half speed while moving now (it did used to be paused), but again, this has been in for as long as I can remember, and is to make kiting difficult.

[Sensuki]

I don't believe it does though, I'll make a few video examples.

 

You are right though, it has been in since v333.

Edited March 20, 2015 by Sensuki

[Lephys]

Sorry, the recovery is at half speed while moving now (it did used to be paused), but again, this has been in for as long as I can remember, and is to make kiting difficult.

In all fairness, while it succeeds at inhibiting the act of freely kiting 24/7, it simultaneously inhibits all the other usages of movement that aren't targeted for purposeful inhibiting.

 

Fighter wants to knockdown that front-line guy, then charge the mage? *whistle* PENALTY!

 

In fact, that seems a little like it at least partially negates the inhibition of kiting, since the ranged person moving away requires that the melee "chaser" also move the same distance, thereby requiring that both their recovery times be delayed by the exact same proportion.

 

An action delay upon stopping after movement would not do this, as melee attacks' delays could be much shorter than ranged weapons' delays. You can't really single out ranged movement.

Edited March 20, 2015 by Lephys

[GreyFox]

Bro I wouldn't make any video examples or they might disable moving in combat altogether.

[Sensuki]

I have a version with this mechanic removed.

I will demonstrate the difference between PE v480 Default and the Modded version in a few various scenarios.

 

Give me a couple hours.

[Sensuki]

Okay I just recorded a video with repeated kiting of a melee character with ranged characters - the movement recovery slow and ranged recovery slow doesn't do a thing, and what's more - the Fog of War abuse is still in the game lol.

 

Uploading in a sec, will take a while though as it's like 300MB on 1Mbit upload.

 

More coming.

Edited March 20, 2015 by Sensuki

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Luckman said it best here already.

 

This decision does not make sense with the existence of a punitive engagement system and recovery penalties already so deeply enforce static combat. PoE combat is already overwhelmingly about the initiation and little else. I think these recovery penalty and movement choices could be cleared up if they just changed the way disengagement attacks work, but that's clearly not going to happen.

[Sensuki]

Will take me most of the afternoon to upload these videos, but I'll provide a few good demonstrations as to what effect it has on different characters if possible. It does nothing to prevent kiting either.

 

I think they *assumed* it might help prevent kiting without actually testing it ?

Edited March 20, 2015 by Sensuki

[Lephys]

^ Well, it has no effect on the kiter that it doesn't ALSO have upon the kitee.

 

"Hey, don't run away, THEN shoot me, because you'll take longer to shoot."

"Yeah, but you'll take longer to thwack me, even if you catch me."

[Mr. Magniloquent]

^ Well, it has no effect on the kiter that it doesn't ALSO have upon the kitee.

 

"Hey, don't run away, THEN shoot me, because you'll take longer to shoot."

"Yeah, but you'll take longer to thwack me, even if you catch me."

 

Not true. Free, unlimited, ultra-bonused disengagement attacks heavily favor that the "kitee" will decimate anyone attempting to retreat.

[Sensuki]

^ Well, it has no effect on the kiter that it doesn't ALSO have upon the kitee.

 

"Hey, don't run away, THEN shoot me, because you'll take longer to shoot."

"Yeah, but you'll take longer to thwack me, even if you catch me."

 

Doesn't matter. If the kiter is faster than you, they're going to be able to kite you no matter what. Paused recovery did actually kind of address this but it made the rest of the legit movement gameplay simply terrible. Slowed recovery doesn't address it - I'll show you in my video. 30 mins ETA on the first one, and I'll make quite a few more.

 

Unfortunately this will eat into my bug hunting time, but I feel very passionately about this. 

[Voss]

 

^ Well, it has no effect on the kiter that it doesn't ALSO have upon the kitee.

 

"Hey, don't run away, THEN shoot me, because you'll take longer to shoot."

"Yeah, but you'll take longer to thwack me, even if you catch me."

 

Not true. Free, unlimited, ultra-bonused disengagement attacks heavily favor that the "kitee" will decimate anyone attempting to retreat.

 

And if they never manage engagement (quite possible if the firer is faster or starts far enough away and knows the kite route), the ranged kiter always wins.  Always, barring misclicks.

Edited March 20, 2015 by Voss

[mutonizer]

This decision does not make sense with the existence of a punitive engagement system and recovery penalties already so deeply enforce static combat. PoE combat is already overwhelmingly about the initiation and little else. I think these recovery penalty and movement choices could be cleared up if they just changed the way disengagement attacks work, but that's clearly not going to happen.

Does if you want to make combat more stable and, as you say static. Personally I'm all for it as it allows more control over the battlefield, both for you and the AI.

IE combat was (and still is) it's weakest link for me but because I'm just a sucker for D&D cRPGs and really love the overall feels of the games (look'n feel, story, character dev, inventory stuff, etc) they are still the best out there in my book. It's a lot more interesting with mods like Sword Coast Stratagem but I really fail to see how it's otherwise superior in any way to PoE.

 

Now, really had doubts about PoE before they pushed back the release and there are still PLENTY of issues but this latest beta build feels really good and combats are really engaging for me. Of course, that's because of how I play and the fact that I only play on Path of the Damned (other difficulties are still complete clickfests no matter how you play though but that could be because I've ran the beta content too many times, we'll see). Once they learn from that, polish some of the issues, enhance both AI and pathfinding and, above all else encounter design, it has some really good potential.

 

And to be honest, as I watch Sensuzi's IWD playthrough from the corner of my eyes (yea, I do that), I REALLY do not want that in PoE but of course that's just me

 

As for the whole "prevent kiting" thing, really who cares. If it's not that, it'll be some magic rock that screws up pathfinding and people who would otherwise kite nonstop will spend 5 mins dragging mobs to THAT rock to abuse it anyway. If you fix the rock, it'll gun/build combo that one shot everything, and if you fix that, it'll always be something else...

STOP trying to prevent/limit from playing single player games people who enjoy abusing flawed systems (or as some would say, find "emergent gameplay"), just follow your vision, fix your bugs and that's it. These guys will ALWAYS find another way because that's how they like playing games, won't play/buy your game if they don't/can't and since this is a single player game, who the hell cares if someone abuses, cheats or whatever!

 

Just do your thing, do it well, marvel at how some folks out there find crazy ways to do something you never thought about, and embrace it.

[Sensuki]

 

Kiting - with Engagement and recovery slow. The AI is a bit bugged with the Fog of War, but that guy is never going to catch me to get a hit off (and I wasn't using good weapons either).

Got a few more to record, will be up over the next half-day or so.

Edited March 20, 2015 by Sensuki

[Sensuki]

I will also make some videos demonstrating how this hurts mobile characters. Mobile characters with no recovery slow are really fun to play - I'll make a cool video with a high Intellect Barbarian and Wild Sprint

[Voss]

What the heck is up with that waterwheel?  It moves along for a bit then jumps every few seconds. 

 

 

Back on topic...

between not working as intended (even if that intention makes for poor gameplay) and the laughable fog of war reset, this feels a bit embarassing for Obsidian

[tdphys]

 

Kiting - with Engagement and recovery slow. The AI is a bit bugged with the Fog of War, but that guy is never going to catch me to get a hit off (and I wasn't using good weapons either).

 

Got a few more to record, will be up over the next half-day or so.

 

All I could think was,  man that's a quart of blood lost for 1 piercing damage....  over and over and over...

 

can the extra blood be turned off?  

 

 

I assume that with the 4 guys you were going to kite by letting each one take a turn shooting while the others recover, but the fog of war made that all moot?

 

Playing devils advocate  :  to be convincing I think you need to show 1 guy kiting without the fog of war bug.  Or at least showing that the melee guy gets no engagement attacks even without the fog of war bug.  It looked to me like he might catch up eventually.

Edited March 20, 2015 by tdphys

[mutonizer]

Well he did say "more difficult", not impossible. Having to take talents and whatnot is their definition of "more difficult" I suppose. That said, I agree that it's ridiculous to try to fight against people who want to kite mobs. The extremes you'll have to reach to achieve that will ruin the experience for everyone else.

 

So it's not big deal with people who kite, and it's no big deal for people who don't. What was the problem again?

[Sensuki]

Playing devils advocate  :  to be convincing I think you need to show 1 guy kiting without the fog of war bug.  Or at least showing that the melee guy gets no engagement attacks even without the fog of war bug.  It looked to me like he might catch up eventually.

Well, I have.

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/71271-slowed-recovery-while-moving-no-thanks/page-10?do=findComment&comment=1588262

 

I've tested this in other patches. Fog of War became broken in v435.

 

So it's not big deal with people who kite, and it's no big deal for people who don't. What was the problem again?

It hurts mobile characters in legitimate gameplay. I will make videos.

Edited March 20, 2015 by Sensuki

[mutonizer]

It hurts mobile characters in legitimate gameplay. I will make videos.

You test bugs, I play and playing with lots of mobile characters, I didn't have any problem with it, nor felt it was a problem at any point whatsoever without knowing about it, nor feel that it's a problem now that I know about it.

 

There is no doubt that it hurts mobile characters, but that's fine with me, because mobility should come at a hefty cost in my book because you should only be moving around for big rewards. No need to make videos really.

[Sensuki]

The idea that you need a system to punish mobile characters is a complete sham. When making mobile characters you are making decisions/sacrifices based on your advancement and attribute choices. Movement also costs time/actions. Some people forget that. This is a real time game and time costs are worth something. There is no reason at all to make the time cost even worse.

 

Building for mobility is a choice, movement in combat is a choice. I dunno what other games you play, but I suppose if you come from turn-based & D&D 3+ then I could see why you have that opinion. This is neither.

Edited March 20, 2015 by Sensuki

[Shdy314]

Sensuki please. Mutonizer didn't feel like this was an issue while he played. Do not doubt Mutonizer's feelings. They clearly trump all objective evidence.

 

Mutonizer thank you for admitting you just want to hurt mobile characters even though according to you this doesn't because you won't even feel it. That is a very coherent and logical argument.

Edited March 20, 2015 by Shdy314

[Voss]

 

Building for mobility is a choice, movement in combat is a choice. I dunno what other games you play, but I suppose if you come from turn-based & D&D 3+ then I could see why you have that opinion. This is neither.

I can't.  3rd (and 4th, but honestly it's a pure boardgame so whatever) have all sorts of movement/mobility combat shenanigans.   To the point that disengagement feels like someone got a bug up their butt about the 3.5 half-ogre spiked chain Spring Attack/Combat Reflexes/Trip build and threaded the PoE combat system with all sorts of nonsense just to deal with that without realizing it wasn't relevant at all to an entirely different system.  Hence engagement, ridiculous disengagement attacks and the idea that kiting should be punished, rather than treated as a legitimate tactic.

[GreyZ]

Movement also costs time/actions. Some people forget that. This is a real time game and time costs are worth something. There is no reason at all to make the time cost even worse.

 

 

not quite true since if you micro properly you can move freely between recovery start and end without any dps loss, so there is no actual cost. In particular character builds with high dmg/slow recovery could move quite a bit before incurring any actual dps loss, which is I assume the reason for this change. 

Ie a character with plate and greatsword would've actually been more mobile than a light armor dagger wielding character, since the later would almost instantly incur dps loss the moment they move, while the former can reposition with little to no impact with their damage.