Combat is just too frustrating

[Heatsink]

Here are the problems with combat that are making me pull my hair out:

 

Enemy NPCs can move huge distances between my characters starting a spell and it firing.  Ground target spells are therefore mostly worthless.

Some AOEs can strike friendlies, and due to the long cast times, the friendlies may or may not have decided to move into the cast area.

Enemy NPCs that can teleport make forming a tank wall useless.

My characters will stand around doing nothing while being beat on.

My characters will lose pathing and run around doing nothing while being beat on.

My spell casters will move into melee combat to cast a spell, even if I don't want them to.

My characters will run into spell effects on the ground to attack an enemy NPC, even if a clear path is available.

[RevBlue]

1.Plan ahead

2.Plan ahead

3. Not that many that can do that, just 2 i can remember off the top of my head (shadows/beetles)

4.Why are you just staring at them being beat on?

5.Agreed there may be some pathfinding issue, still with proper management shouldn't be any serious problems

6.Plan ahead, check the range of the spell, also if you try and cast and the spell icon has little feet on it, it means you are outside the spell range and the character will move. Plan ahead

7.Not sure what you mean about that, what spell effects on the ground?

 

Seriously people, this is a *tactical* game. You can't just click on enemies once and expect the engine to do all the work for you. Micro managment is the name of the game.

[PsychoBlonde]

Learning to time your AOE spells is part of the game.  I found that usually if you wait for the combat to be joined before throwing your AOE's, people don't move around nearly so much.  So, the trick then becomes to position your melee people so that you can AOE around them.

 

The teleporting ability is specific to ghost-type mobs, it's not a universal thing.  Just adopt different tactics when fighting them.  I love that the game requires you to not just use the same tactics over and over.

 

It is sometimes necessary to encourage your characters to attack properly, but this is a bit of a trade-off because sometimes you may not WANT them to mindlessly attack whatever they see first.

 

The pathing isn't perfect, but it never is.

 

Different spells have different ranges.  If you tell them to cast a short-ranged spell at something that's far away, they'll run up to it in order to cast.

 

The computer can't read your mind, dear.

 

Might be an interesting feature request to allow you to queue up movement waypoints for a character though, so you can move them more precisely without having to babysit them at every stage.

Edited April 3, 2015 by PsychoBlonde

[RevBlue]

Might be an interesting feature request to allow you to queue up movement waypoints for a character though, so you can move them more precisely without having to babysit them at every stage.

 

You CAN move them in waypoints, and que actions as well. Just hold the shift key when clicking

Edited April 3, 2015 by RevBlue

[Schakar]

Seriously people, this is a *tactical* game. You can't just click on enemies once and expect the engine to do all the work for you. Micro managment is the name of the game.

Any "tactical" game with a unit-pathfinding like PoE wouldn't reach a 5/10 in any gametest .

 

Just a short example:

My unit locations: A_B_C

If I now want A to get right side of C ... he will for sure get stuck at B and try to go straight through B! The pathfinding routin is just not smart enaugh to let A do a step south and then go east. Or maybe the pathfinding routine could handle it but is BUGed, don't know.

 

Another bad bahavior is, that auto-attack "overwrite" my commands .

Ever tryed to run away with a 2*Dagger max DEX char? Nearly imposible as he turns around all the time trying to auto-attack the monsters! If I tell him "RUN", I expect him to run until I tell him to do something else or he reached the destination I told him. THEN he might auto-attack if something is close.

 

So yes, I can understand Heatsink . Pathfinding is terrible in this game.

 

 

Might be an interesting feature request to allow you to queue up movement waypoints for a character though, so you can move them more precisely without having to babysit them at every stage.

 

You CAN move them in waypoints, and que actions as well. Just hold the shift key when clicking

 

REALY?? WOW, this is new to me and will for sure help :D. Big thanks for the tip .

Edited April 3, 2015 by Schakar

[ManifestedISO]

Take control. Take it. 

[HozzM]

The combat is better than the IE games but it should have been a turn based system.

[Mungri]

No it shouldn't have been turn based. Pause and play is better and more challenging.

[HozzM]

No it shouldn't have been turn based. Pause and play is better and more challenging.

 

Its not more challenging.  It just relies more on reflex and micro management, whereas turn based relies more on the understanding of a fixed ruleset.

[Kveldulf]

I have to agree about the pathing issues. Even with my micro management mode enabled I still find it frustrating to deal with 'that guy' in my party who just isn't sure where to go or, 'that guy' who forgets how to use a pike over the tanks.

Edited April 3, 2015 by Kveldulf

[PrimeJunta]

1. Either use AoE spells in the opening from stealth, or move someone forward you figure they'll attack and target pre-emptively based on that, or wait until your front line has engaged and the battlefield has stabilized before using them.

 

2. Take control of your friendlies and keep them out of the AoE. Pause if they start to move between the time you've started casting and the spell's gone off, and issue new orders. Also make use of the "no FF" fringes.

 

3. This is a special ability which makes fights with them different from other fights. You have to use different tactics to beat them. It's the kind of thing that makes encounters more varied and interesting. It would be dull if a single tactic beat every encounter.

 

4. Oh? Mine usually engage and auto-attack.

 

5. Yep, they do. Pathing in combat is easily blocked. This is annoying and I hope it'll be improved in future patches. Solution is the same as to 2: if they start doing that, take control and issue new orders.

 

6. Only if you're casting from too far. Pay attention to the cursor. If it turns into the walk icon, it means you're out of range and they'll move. This may take them into melee. If this happens, take control and issue a different order.

 

7. Take control and issue them different pathing orders. Avoiding hostile AoE's was not a feature in the IE games, and it's not a feature here. The reason is that this would eliminate a whole range of tactics based on intentional FF: e.g. buff your tank to near-immunity to fire, have him pin down the enemies, and then firebomb the bejeezus out if the area. 

[Emptiness]

The combat is better than the IE games but it should have been a turn based system.

 

You can make it effectively turn-based whenever you want.  Just turn on the auto-pause option "Party Member Finishes Ability".  The game will pause after each time a character takes an action, and you can then issue a new order to that character if you wish.

[Mungri]

 

No it shouldn't have been turn based. Pause and play is better and more challenging.

 

Its not more challenging.  It just relies more on reflex and micro management, whereas turn based relies more on the understanding of a fixed ruleset.

 

 

Yes and the increased reflex and micro management makes it more challenging and also more intense.

[FalloutBoy]

A Turn on auto-slow mode when combat begins.

B When combat begins let the melee characters establish position before trying to fire spells.

C Fire spells

D Collect loot

[Ichthyic]

It took a few hours of playing before I got used to how this game paces itself, and how you have to lead your targets with spells and whatnot, but now that I'm used to it, I find the pacing to be decent enough.

I DO however think that effects like "hobbling", whether from a rogue skill cripple, or from a web spell, should slow enemies 50% more than it does.  especially now that the new patch makes spells like grease only have a single knockdown attack per cast.

to compensate, the game provides you with nearly endless places where you can bottleneck your foes, put up a tank wall, and pummel your opponents that way.

but I do think I still prefer open tactical combat a bit more... and the way to fix that is to have abilities that slow your opponents actually have a more significant impact on their movement speed.

it would be a very easy thing to mod as well, should the devs have their own reasons for not wanting to do that.

in fact, post patch 1.04 (the one after this one coming up), modding spells is probably the first thing I would be looking at.

 

[HozzM]

 

The combat is better than the IE games but it should have been a turn based system.

 

You can make it effectively turn-based whenever you want.  Just turn on the auto-pause option "Party Member Finishes Ability".  The game will pause after each time a character takes an action, and you can then issue a new order to that character if you wish.

 

Yes I have that option turned on but the path finding is still a problem, where it would not be a in a turn based system.

[HozzM]

 

 

No it shouldn't have been turn based. Pause and play is better and more challenging.

 

Its not more challenging.  It just relies more on reflex and micro management, whereas turn based relies more on the understanding of a fixed ruleset.

 

 

Yes and the increased reflex and micro management makes it more challenging and also more intense.

 

No it just makes it more tedious and frustrating, mostly because of the terrible path finding.

[draek]

Pathing is still pretty hilarious in PoE

I remember a case where I had 2 guys beating on an enemy. 300 degrees of the enemy was completely empty. 

 

Instead of taking space between that completely empty unobstructed 300 degrees. It decided to run back and forth in the 60 degrees of space that my2 guys were taking up trying to find a spot. 

[Malignacious]

The combat is better than the IE games but it should have been a turn based system.

Yup, turn based is always better than real time.

[RevBlue]

To be fair, its not like the old IE games had such brilliant path finding. Maybe its not a bug, its a feature!

[VioNectro]

Here are the problems with combat that are making me pull my hair out:

 

Enemy NPCs can move huge distances between my characters starting a spell and it firing.  Ground target spells are therefore mostly worthless.

Some AOEs can strike friendlies, and due to the long cast times, the friendlies may or may not have decided to move into the cast area.

Enemy NPCs that can teleport make forming a tank wall useless.

My characters will stand around doing nothing while being beat on.

My characters will lose pathing and run around doing nothing while being beat on.

My spell casters will move into melee combat to cast a spell, even if I don't want them to.

My characters will run into spell effects on the ground to attack an enemy NPC, even if a clear path is available.

The path finding stuffing up has been a real frustration for me personally as well.

 

Spell casters running up to targets could have been solved by the developers by providing in game range indicator rather than expecting a player to go open up a description and try and estimate the range with their isometric eye.

 

On the AOE and pathing finding related to AOE: the game itself should let you make mistakes, that being said the UI should show a planned route for characters when shift is used. UI should also have a "queue" for characters that can be seen. You can also solve some of the problems by simply leaving some sort of indicator on the ground where another character of yours had planned to land a spell.

 

Basically, path finding one with characters just wiggling around or going around the wrong side of a mosh etc. is clearly something bugged. The rest are convenience feature requests.

[Katarack21]

1. Either use AoE spells in the opening from stealth, or move someone forward you figure they'll attack and target pre-emptively based on that, or wait until your front line has engaged and the battlefield has stabilized before using them.

 

2. Take control of your friendlies and keep them out of the AoE. Pause if they start to move between the time you've started casting and the spell's gone off, and issue new orders. Also make use of the "no FF" fringes.

 

3. This is a special ability which makes fights with them different from other fights. You have to use different tactics to beat them. It's the kind of thing that makes encounters more varied and interesting. It would be dull if a single tactic beat every encounter.

 

4. Oh? Mine usually engage and auto-attack.

 

5. Yep, they do. Pathing in combat is easily blocked. This is annoying and I hope it'll be improved in future patches. Solution is the same as to 2: if they start doing that, take control and issue new orders.

 

6. Only if you're casting from too far. Pay attention to the cursor. If it turns into the walk icon, it means you're out of range and they'll move. This may take them into melee. If this happens, take control and issue a different order.

 

7. Take control and issue them different pathing orders. Avoiding hostile AoE's was not a feature in the IE games, and it's not a feature here. The reason is that this would eliminate a whole range of tactics based on intentional FF: e.g. buff your tank to near-immunity to fire, have him pin down the enemies, and then firebomb the bejeezus out if the area. 

Three enemy tanks at the chokepoint of a doorway, with my two tanks blocking entrance. Behind him, my healer. Behind the healer, my two ranged DPS casters. Feral druid shows up at doorway behind enemy tanks, begins casting spell.

 

My PC casts Mind Lance at the feral druid, striking everybody inbetween. In preperation, I cast an AoE heal; about halfway into the heal I begin the Mind Lance cast.

 

End result, enemy druid and one enemy tank dead, one enemy tank nearly dead, party totally OK, my fist-bumping the air.

[osea101]

Extremely frustrating and unfun combat that relies too much on resting. And I'm playing on easy.