the one issue i find frustrating with this game

[kalel78]

your main character gets put to the front of the line after some of the scripted events.

 

so there are a few times in the game where you have the following:

 

party is positioned as i want

open door

my character is now at the front of the party

dialogue scene and eventual boss fight starts

my character gets killed within 5 seconds because he/she is at the front instead of the back

 

obsidian..  i position my character in a certain place for a reason.. my wizard (or whatever glass cannon character you make) is not designed to be a front line fighter.  its so frustrating to see them at the front and there is little that can be done about it.  most of the boss fights.. at least in acts 1 and 2 (i just got into act III last night), are in very small spaces and positioning is hard enough as it is.

 

yes, i can usually work around it.. but i have to reload a few times to get the right spell combinations off.  please make it so party positioning is not modified after a dialogue event.

[NathanH]

Can't you drag your tank's portrait to the #1 position? You can rearrange all the other 5 slots as you please. I haven't tried replacing my leader though.

[Iolaus]

Aye, as a wizard it is rare I ever want to be in the front.  Gets me knocked out real quick!

[kalel78]

Can't you drag your tank's portrait to the #1 position? You can rearrange all the other 5 slots as you please. I haven't tried replacing my leader though.

the positioning you are referring to doesnt come into play during at least a couple of the story fights.

 

for example,  my wizard (which is my main character) is positioned toward the back of the party.. there are at least a couple scripted events where the positioning changes and my main goes to the front. 

 

i understand their reasoning.. my main is the party leader.. so it makes sense that he/she would be at the front talking to the NPC.. the problem is.. it doesnt work so well in combat when they are built as a glass cannon.

[NathanH]

To clarify: I don't mean positioning in the custom formation, I mean the order of the portraits in the bottom-left of the main UI. You can drag these around as you please. As far as I can tell, these determine your location in the scripted sequences. For instance, Aloth used to be the second portrait and appeared next to my PC in these boss fight situations, but when I dragged Eder's portrait into the second position, he took that space instead.

 

I have never tried to drag anyone into the first position though, so I don't know whether that works.

Edited April 6, 2015 by NathanH

[kalel78]

my understanding is positioning goes from left to right.. meaning:

 

FRONT(tanks/melee)............BACK(my main)

 

thats how it works outside of the script events anyway.  with the above positioning.. my melee chars are up front and my ranged fighters are in the back as i would expect.

 

during the scripted events my character gets put to the front.

[mistermannindy]

To clarify: I don't mean positioning in the custom formation, I mean the order of the portraits in the bottom-left of the main UI. You can drag these around as you please. As far as I can tell, these determine your location in the scripted sequences. For instance, Aloth used to be the second portrait and appeared next to my PC in these boss fight situations, but when I dragged Eder's portrait into the second position, he took that space instead.

 

I have never tried to drag anyone into the first position though, so I don't know whether that works.

Give it a try.  I was working for me before the patch (1.03).  Sometimes you have to remember to initiate discussions with your PC however because otherwise the character in position 1 is assumed the leader.

[Tigranes]

How many times does this happen? In most cases I've found I can position everybody, then just select one character (I suppose the frontline guy), open the door and walk up and talk to the person, then run back. 

 

NWN2 for example was terrible with this, where you'd sneak the entire building with your thief, enter a room, then the big bad initiates dialogue and suddenly all your party ends up teleported into the room. 

[MReed]

Yeah, there are a (fairly few) examples of combats where your custom formation is ignored in favor of using one of the standard formations (normally, the "two man abreast" style, in the order that the portraits appear at the bottom left).  The most obvious example of this is the "Keep Defense" fights.

 

The good news is that PoE does this alot less often than other games -- but it is still very annoying each and every time it happens. 

 

Note that this is totally different from an ambush scenario:  if you are ambushed by teleporting enemies, then yes, enemies may appear on all sides creating a difficult tactical problem, and that's OK.  My complaint (and I assume the OPs as well) is when the party is repositioned automatically to make a cutscene "look good", followed by automatically initiating combat at the end of the cutscene.

[kalel78]

How many times does this happen? In most cases I've found I can position everybody, then just select one character (I suppose the frontline guy), open the door and walk up and talk to the person, then run back. 

 

NWN2 for example was terrible with this, where you'd sneak the entire building with your thief, enter a room, then the big bad initiates dialogue and suddenly all your party ends up teleported into the room. 

 

for me, this seems to happen anytime there is a scripted event where my character is walking into the room.. when this happens its a guarantee they are at the front.. and they stay that way when the cutscene transitions to combat.  yes, it is very few fights where this occurs.. but its usually during a boss fight where positioning is important and very difficult to pull off due to the small spacing in the room.