How to fix the "Doorway chokepoint" dominant strategy

[Concordance]

Does it actually need fixing?

 

You only have to use doorways if you have a ranged party with 1-2 tanks. If you've decided to go with a composition of mainly squishy characters, you must use the terrain to limit melee engagement to something your tanks can manage. It's basic tactics, right?

 

If you can't control yourself and must optimize encounters by using doorways, considering building a melee-centric party with no "dedicated" tank, such as Fighter+Barbarian+Monk+Melee Rogue(low con/int, mid might, high int/per/res, stilettos or sabres)+Paladin (must be PC)+Priest(reach or ranged). Don't minmax any of the melee characters except the rogue. You will find that your party has high survivability, lots of per-encounter abilities and surprisingly good damage output.

 

You will have a lot of fun with no need for doorways. Do you have any idea how good it feels to be able to walk into a room full of enemies and start smiting like you own the place?

[Starthief]

And in any fight in which you can door block, you should door block (if you want to play "right"). That's just dictated by the current mechanics of the game and encounter design. 

 

Assuming your party consists of tanks and ranged, sure.  (Although there's one particular fight where the beginning is scripted, and my first party got creamed four times in a row trying to hold a choke point.  As soon as I switched to rushing the casters instead, it went very smoothly.)

 

In my second playthrough I'm using five meleers and a druid.  I try to avoid choke points in most fights.  I lock down enemies with my two tanks, take out priority and opportunity targets with my rogue, engage the rest with pikes, and keep the druid on floating support duty.  It's going so much smoother than my first run did.

[Matt516]

Ignoring collision is a very, very bad idea. There's already a limited amount of it with friendly party members to avoid some of the pathing problems, which is fine - but eliminating collision entirely is silly. I don't want it to work like it works in WoW.

[Luckmann]

nvm

 

Well, you must have equipped Durance for somekind of tanking role before the encounter and thus forgo some of his caster capabilities, else he'd be a squishie himself. And that's a trade off. But I concede your point nonetheless, and agree that the AI is needs to be better equipped/programmed to put your squishies in danger. And that video is just screwy, but I imagine their behaviour is to reflect the lore that Drakes are close to primate intelligence. They are dumb.

Nope.

I wonder if anyone is seeing the same enemy A.I I'm seeing with enemies not going around objects. Here's a video I just did of enemies not going around coffins to my back line and seem to have 'blinkers' on with trying to go after my tank. Could be a pathfinding issue for the enemies as well, especially when they get stuck behind each other after Sagani's fox goes down.

Playing on hard. Enemies waiting in line to take turns at Eder after Sagani's fox goes down around 36 sec mark. I did kill the Fampyr earlier as it couldn't get past the darguls and wouldn't go around the objects. Durance is to the right of Eder just standing there doing nothing and being ignored by the enemy and eventually move him away near the end.

 

The YouTube imbed is broken. The forum isn't all too fond of this stuff, for some reason.

Here's a link for everyone that can't see it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qe6ZtNVDNcU

Edited April 16, 2015 by Luckmann

[Matt516]

I have observed enemy AI bugging out and just standing still. Often for me it's after knocking them away with Kana's Fus Roh Dah or my Monk's Kick of Being Really Far Away.

 

I think everyone would agree that needs to be fixed, period.

[wotdlois]

I use it for larger mobs where there is no risk of aoe spells being cast on my group.  A few death guards casting fire balls and your tightly knit group's endurance is all but shot.  I dont see this as an exploit as it doesnt always work.  You also run the risk of having your front line stuck with no where to go while they get jumped and hacked to pieces.  I am reminded of a fight in Divinity OS.  The battle at Evelyn's lair, me and my buddy teleported every fire basket in the area to make a funnel on the stairs which completely choked up all the enemies,it worked perfectly!  Use what you can use to win the fights is the way i see it.

[dekergus]

well, if you dont like chokepoints , dont use it...

[Matt516]

well, if you dont like chokepoints , dont use it...

 

Again, and for the millionth time - "don't use it" is not an appropriate response to the existence of an overpowered/dominant strategy. If chess had a rule where I could trade my pawns for queens on the first turn, I could surely decide to "not use it" to make the game more fun... but the game would still be poorly designed.

[dekergus]

i dont agree. 

 

plenty of strategies are possible, because you dont like some of them doesn't means the design is bad.

 

and more than that , chokepoint is not a necessity really , just aggro with your tank is enough most of the time, regardless if you are in a dorway or in the middle of the sea... should we remove tank aggro as well ?

[View619]

i dont agree. 

 

plenty of strategies are possible, because you dont like some of them doesn't means the design is bad.

 

and more than that , chokepoint is not a necessity really , just aggro with your tank is enough most of the time, regardless if you are in a dorway or in the middle of the sea... should we remove tank aggro as well ?

 

So, instead of abusing the fact that the AI is so bad and units so underwhelming that I can trivialize encounters by setting up a choke point, I should abuse the fact that the AI is so bad that if I send my tank forward they'll ignore the rest of my non-engaged units even while they rain death on top of the enemy.

 

Yeah, that definitely solves the problem. /sarcasm

 

If you are able to trivialize encounters in Hard and POTD with a very basic tactic, there is a design problem regarding encounter difficulty; this is even without min-maxing of any kind.

Edited April 16, 2015 by View619

[dekergus]

well i dunno man, melee characters do melee , ranged do ranged , quite often rogue-likes break into your party, spellcasters hit it with CC, focus your weakest elements, reinforcements are sent time to time....

 

they could flee when about to die, it would be fun.

 

i agree the game is not very difficult , its just fine with me. and don't forget it's a baldur like...

Edited April 17, 2015 by dekergus

[Jasta11]

 

well, if you dont like chokepoints , dont use it...

 

Again, and for the millionth time - "don't use it" is not an appropriate response to the existence of an overpowered/dominant strategy. If chess had a rule where I could trade my pawns for queens on the first turn, I could surely decide to "not use it" to make the game more fun... but the game would still be poorly designed.

 

 

Well, the difference is that chess is multiplayer.

 

But I agree, it's too easy to use chokepoints. Yet I don't see an easy fix, short of making the AI always back off from doorway chokepoints (which would also be easily abusable) or giving them ways to just bypass tanks such as teleportation, which is fairly cheesy. Perhaps giving enemies more knockback spells?

[Matt516]

 

 

well, if you dont like chokepoints , dont use it...

 

Again, and for the millionth time - "don't use it" is not an appropriate response to the existence of an overpowered/dominant strategy. If chess had a rule where I could trade my pawns for queens on the first turn, I could surely decide to "not use it" to make the game more fun... but the game would still be poorly designed.

 

 

Well, the difference is that chess is multiplayer.

 

But I agree, it's too easy to use chokepoints. Yet I don't see an easy fix, short of making the AI always back off from doorway chokepoints (which would also be easily abusable) or giving them ways to just bypass tanks such as teleportation, which is fairly cheesy. Perhaps giving enemies more knockback spells?

 

 

Chess is multiplayer, but the point still stands. Imagine an alternate universe in which chess is only played against computers, if you will. I picked it as an example because it's generally considered one of the best balanced games in the world.

 

But you are right - single player games don't demand perfect symmetrical balance. I still think easily exploitable or extremely dominant strategies mean bad game design though.

[scrotiemcb]

Balance isn't about symmetry; all excessive symmetry does is make a game boring, and draw more intense focus towards the things which aren't symmetrical. Balance is about variety. The game is more fun when you're using a variety of positioning strategies to get tasks accomplished, and less fun when it's the same old thing every time.

Edited April 17, 2015 by scrotiemcb

[Matt516]

Balance isn't about symmetry; all excessive symmetry does is make a game boring, and draw more intense focus towards the things which aren't symmetrical. Balance is about variety. The game is more fun when you're using a variety of positioning strategies to get tasks accomplished, and less fun when it's the same old thing every time.

 

Balance isn't necessarily all about variety, but in this case that's certainly a good facet to focus on. Highly dominant/OP strategies reduce variety and player choice, making the game boring in no time.

[scrotiemcb]

 

 

Balance isn't about symmetry; all excessive symmetry does is make a game boring, and draw more intense focus towards the things which aren't symmetrical. Balance is about variety. The game is more fun when you're using a variety of positioning strategies to get tasks accomplished, and less fun when it's the same old thing every time.

Balance isn't necessarily all about variety, but in this case that's certainly a good facet to focus on. Highly dominant/OP strategies reduce variety and player choice, making the game boring in no time.

Precisely. A large variety of options, where one option is clearly superior to all others, is the illusion of choice, and in practice no variety at all.

[View619]

Well, the next patch should tell whether the devs plan to address difficulty balance-related issues, or just stick with what they have and move on to the expansion.

[Matt516]

Well, the next patch should tell whether the devs plan to address difficulty balance-related issues, or just stick with what they have and move on to the expansion.

 

Yeah, I'm very interested to see what 1.05 ends up looking like. If there are major tuning changes of some sort to Hard/PotD, that'll be a good sign.

 

Honestly what I'm most worried about are the fundamentally non-future-proof parts of the game systems, like Might scaling and the XP curves. Individual encounters can be balanced, but those are a few systemic issues that could give them some trouble in the long run.

Edited April 17, 2015 by Matt516

[Daemonjax]

 

Well, the next patch should tell whether the devs plan to address difficulty balance-related issues, or just stick with what they have and move on to the expansion.

 

Yeah, I'm very interested to see what 1.05 ends up looking like. If there are major tuning changes of some sort to Hard/PotD, that'll be a good sign.

 

Honestly what I'm most worried about are the less future-proof parts of the systems, like Might scaling and the XP curves. Individual encounters can be balanced, but those are a few systemic issues that could give them some trouble in the long run.

 

 

I doubt we'll get anything approaching something like Diablo 2: LOD 1.10 patch that rebalanced classes around Synergies.  

 

I'd be happy enough with just bugfixes and tooltips that match the underlying game mechanics.

Edited April 17, 2015 by Daemonjax

[Blucher]

 

well, if you dont like chokepoints , dont use it...

 

Again, and for the millionth time - "don't use it" is not an appropriate response to the existence of an overpowered/dominant strategy. If chess had a rule where I could trade my pawns for queens on the first turn, I could surely decide to "not use it" to make the game more fun... but the game would still be poorly designed.

 

 

Sure it is.  This is a single player game.  If someone doesn't like doing something, they shouldn't do it.

 

In the IE games, if I had a full party, I would rarely, if ever, pre-buff, kite, attack outside of LOS, or any other powerful (OP?) tactic.  I would just barrel right on into the fight and make the best of things.  (Usually with as little active input as possible, and I really enjoyed making my own scripts for those games.)

 

But... if I was playing a solo-ironman game, you bet I did everything I could to give myself an advantage (and I needed it).

 

The exploits in the IE games allowed *me* the ability to really enjoy the game in a variety of ways, from ridiculously easy to ridiculously difficult, and everywhere inbetween.

 

In single-player games, players have to accept some small modicum of responsibility for their own behavior in and enjoyment of a game.

[Merany]

So, SCS for POE?

I'm going to assume this is going to happen at some point

I think I'm fine with Obsidian *simply* having a decent pathing / AI system as long as it can be improved by mods, which, again, will likely be tackled by someone in the future.

 

And as a true fan of SCS, I cannot wait for this day :D

[scrotiemcb]

 

 

 

 

well, if you dont like chokepoints , dont use it...

Again, and for the millionth time - "don't use it" is not an appropriate response to the existence of an overpowered/dominant strategy. If chess had a rule where I could trade my pawns for queens on the first turn, I could surely decide to "not use it" to make the game more fun... but the game would still be poorly designed.

Sure it is. This is a single player game. If someone doesn't like doing something, they shouldn't do it.

 

In the IE games, if I had a full party, I would rarely, if ever, pre-buff, kite, attack outside of LOS, or any other powerful (OP?) tactic. I would just barrel right on into the fight and make the best of things. (Usually with as little active input as possible, and I really enjoyed making my own scripts for those games.)

 

But... if I was playing a solo-ironman game, you bet I did everything I could to give myself an advantage (and I needed it).

 

The exploits in the IE games allowed *me* the ability to really enjoy the game in a variety of ways, from ridiculously easy to ridiculously difficult, and everywhere inbetween.

 

In single-player games, players have to accept some small modicum of responsibility for their own behavior in and enjoyment of a game.

What You are describing here is, for many, a completely immersion-breaking experience. You are asking players to make a metagame choice to deliberately hinder their characters through suboptimal play. If you mentally separate the player from the character in such a way that the player's deliberate choice doesn't have an in-game parallel to character choice, then I imagine you have no problems. However, a lot of players, including me, have a problem doing this. I could play a tank character without the strategic sense to use the very powerful doorway strategy, but I'd need to explain it to myself in-game somehow - perhaps he's too narcissistic to really care about the rest of the party, perhaps he secretly hopes to betray them, perhaps he's a bit mad, most likely he's just plain old daft. While this can work for me, I wouldn't want to play that way every time.

 

There is also immersion in terms of enemies. Any group which is so easily thwarted by such tactics simply doesn't seem smart. If I'm fighting animals or (most) wilders, no problem with immersion there, but when seasoned sellswords are befuddled by it, I see it as the game making mockery of their intelligence.

 

Basically, you're telling players they are responsible for imagining how actions play out in Eora. I beg to differ; it is the game's responsibility to show us, in a manner which delivers on role-playing expectations. We as players are audience here, not storytellers... at least not primarily.

Edited April 17, 2015 by scrotiemcb

[Jojobobo]

Am I the only one who thinks fighting in a choke-point or doorway would be what happened in a dungeon? It's precisely what people would do in the same real life situation. And sure maybe they could have given more rooms multiple doorways, but that's the thing about doorways in underground dungeon rooms - in terms of realism people have to dig through the solid rock to make them.

 

The only real issue I think is that ranged characters, unless using some AoE spells, don't hit your own guys when shooting behind them. Having said that, I don't really mind too much - combat is much more varied even with choke-points than most games, and choke-points despite what people say aren't ubiquitous.

 

Lastly, as people said, you don't have to use them - talents like Hold the Line or weapons with +1 engagement make it easy enough for even fighter-less teams to tie up the enemy.

 

I don't think this is something that needs patching at all - it's the kind of thing that can be much more easily worked into the expansion (with expansions usually having natural inclines in combat difficulty from situations like this anyway).

[Blucher]

What You are describing here is, for many, a completely immersion-breaking experience. You are asking players to make a metagame choice to deliberately hinder their characters through suboptimal play. If you mentally separate the player from the character in such a way that the player's deliberate choice doesn't have an in-game parallel to character choice, then I imagine you have no problems. However, a lot of players, including me, have a problem doing this. I could play a tank character without the strategic sense to use the very powerful doorway strategy, but I'd need to explain it to myself in-game somehow - perhaps he's too narcissistic to really care about the rest of the party, perhaps he secretly hopes to betray them, perhaps he's a bit mad, most likely he's just plain old daft. While this can work for me, I wouldn't want to play that way every time.

 

There is also immersion in terms of enemies. Any group which is so easily thwarted by such tactics simply doesn't seem smart. If I'm fighting animals or (most) wilders, no problem with immersion there, but when seasoned sellswords are befuddled by it, I see it as the game making mockery of their intelligence.

 

Basically, you're telling players they are responsible for imagining how actions play out in Eora. I beg to differ; it is the game's responsibility to show us, in a manner which delivers on role-playing expectations. We as players are audience here, not storytellers... at least not primarily.

 

I think I see what you are getting at, and it's a valid point.  I don't approach cRPGs that way though, so it's kind of an alien concept to me.

 

I love RPGs and have played a ton: sitting around a table, rolling dice, pushing miniatures, as well as really getting "into" character, trying to eliminate meta-knowledge, all that.  But cRPGs I view as mostly pushing miniatures, within a meagre framework of "story".  Now if I really get drawn into the story, and/or really find myself growing attached to NPCs (which I have)... that's great!  But normally I want a cRPG (with an emphasis on the lowercase c) to be a kick-but combat simulator with (hopefully deep) elements  from "real" RPG systems.

 

As such I have no problem modulating my behavior within a game, depending upon what gives me the most satisfaction.

[b0rsuk]

Another thing AI could do better is focus fire. They are too happy to spread their damage around. If they all ganged up their shots on one of my squishes, that would be something.