To lure or not to lure - Combat, AI and stuff

[Valorian]

Pillars of Eternity is a great game and everybody should play it. 

 

That said, these are some of my observations regarding combat on hard/expert (with self-imposed rules such as no kiting, limited resting and reloading):

 

 

1. Luring enemies to choke points is a wise thing to do. Sadly, AI gets confused, splits its encounter group and sends one foe at a time if you lure them far enough (if the choke point is not near e.g.). This process doesn't involve any challenge at all. I've stopped doing it after a few times because, obviously, it makes combat encounters so easy that it feels like cheating.

 

I don't want to be forced to choose between a) throwing Charname and companions to enemies as is and b) breaking the AI. Can you please instruct the AI, at least on hard, path of the damned and expert to chase the party as a group; everywhere and forever?

 

 

1.2. Chanter's invocations. Classes like monks and ciphers, which I haven't played yet, fuel their main powers by being hit or hitting. Invocations are strong, particularly certain summons, and the 12 or more seconds timer before you can use them is supposed to keep them in check. The chanter doesn't need to be anywhere near an enemy for the timer to tick down though. This means that you can send your group, chanter included, at a choke point ~12+ seconds away and by the time one of your party members gets there followed by an enemy, the perma-stunning phantom will be ready, circumventing the purpose of the timer. You can, of course, also run with the entire group to the choke point and when you arrive the invocation will be ready.

 

I'd like the invocation timer to tick down only when a) an enemy is in range of the chant and b) when the chanter is not moving.

 

 

2. Two-stage passive and active attacks. I love those, for enemies and allies, because it adds variety to combat. However, I think that if the primary attack is a graze, then the secondary attack should be executed with halved accuracy. I remember Josh mentioning, many months ago, that two-stage attacks would take this into account.

It would reduce a chanter's invoked phantom capability to permastun things, for instance. (In addition to this, but not as important, attacks targeting fort./will/refl. could have 0/-75%/standard/+75% damage/duration to increase the value of these 3 defenses.)

 

 

3. With a full party I'm deleting and obliterating things left and right without using per rest abilities, and hardly losing any health. I decided to recruit as many people as possible because I am curious about their stories, but for the 2nd playthrough I plan to let 2 join at most to retain a bit of challenge hopefully. Everyone is able to dish out copious amount of damage with auto-attacks and per-encounter abilities and it's also pretty easy to equip people who are taking point with ridiculously high DR*. Sagani counts almost as 2 companions because of her animal and so does Kana with his summon spamming. I hope it is understood how powerful is to summon/have a thing that both deals decent damage and soaks damage.

 

Each additional party member makes combat exponentially easier, not to mention that you get to explore their personal quests.

Expand XP from bestiary, per kill and total, for each empty party member slot. The highest number of people that you used to defeat a certain monster at any point would always count as the maximum potential XP amount for that particular bestiary entry. Example: you defeat your first skeleton solo; +200 XP -> 200/4000 XP. Then you defeat a 2nd skeleton with a full party; +100 XP -> 300/1000 XP (maximum permanently reduced for skeletons, but you can't lose XP). Also proportional for 2, 3, 4 or 5 people.

 

*To alleviate the DR problem, all melee attacks could have a base 50% chance to halve the DR for that particular attack, representing the attacker hitting a weak spot on the armor.

 

 

4. Resting. I like resting restrictions, but wouldn't it be better to restrict resting by drastically increasing the price of camping supplies and having to use one (the healing herbs and whatnot that are part of it), even in 0-coin-resting zones, to be able to heal health? You'd be able to remove fatigue and restore per rest resources as usual, but restoring health would always require supplies. Also, instead of having 2 camping supplies slots, have 4, but increase the price 4 times or more for higher difficulties. After all, those camping supplies are very valuable if they can heal wounds and restore health. It could be a decent coin sink and would be more in line with the purpose of the stash (not going back and forth); deciding whether to use something expensive rather than deciding if you want to bother to travel to the nearest village to buy it for a couple of coins.

Minor: I thought the purpose of 4 quick slots is to have 4 items in total that you can use during combat, not 20.

 

 

*****

 

That's that on a macro level, for now, avoiding the feels tangent. Regarding feels, I would love fighters to get to pick a combat style at level 1 as a mandatory choice, for example. I would like to make him a dual-wielding "expert", but there were things to pick that I found more essential than an attack speed bonus and since everyone is able to dual-wield just fine without any talents (bad feels)... Maybe at higher levels?

PoE's combat is very good. Among other things, I like how the variety of afflictions and effects that some monsters apply on-hit add to combat complexity and diversity, I like that there's no level scaling, I like the engagement mechanics etc. 

 

I avoided the beta, videos, and all topics that could contain information about main and side content, including "balance" topics and I will continue to do so until I finish the game. I plan to avoid even my own topic till then. See you in a week or 2.

 

[Lephys]

Great list! I second these suggestions, for the most part.

 

Another thing I'll add is that some of the abilities with really short durations feel really hard to make tactical decisions with. When something blinds someone for 6 seconds, how do you really tell how many attacks that is, or exactly when to cast it so that you can encompass 3 attacks instead of 2 (missing an attack by .1 seconds or something)?

 

That, and I feel like percentages don't work best for everything. Again, when something has a 6-second duration, it's a bit odd to get +.7 seconds to it because of your stats. Not only is that negligible, but it's unintuitive.

 

And lastly, I like the gist of engagement, but at times, I wish it were easier to tell when you were interrupting something. Or, to coordinate an interrupt with a move, so that you could avoid a disengagement attack. Unless they didn't implement that change to Interrupt that has it cleanly breaking engagement and requiring the enemy to re-engage. In which case, I think they should implement that. Then, there needs to be an easier way to tell when a character's disengaged so that they can move. Maybe a way to queue up a move command for when they land an interrupt? *shrug*

Edited April 15, 2015 by Lephys

[SlayerDorian]

I'm quite certain, that on PoTD using the pre-made NPCs, you would not be able to stroll on through the game without ever using per rest abilities.  Something seems rather off here.

[Valorian]

Thanks Lephys. Engagement could have a status icon like other status effects, specifying engaged parties. Or an auto-pause option when a party member disengages.

 

Also, finished! Now I have the whole picture and I shall deepen my input.

 

 

-Armor DR

A couple of solutions for the problem of armor making the player almost invulnerable. In addition to the recovery penalty:

 

a) A base 33% chance (slightly different for each class and monster type perhaps), modified by the difference in levels between the attacker and defender * 2, to reduce the DR for that attack to 25%. I'd suggest to make it work only with melee weapons, including creatures' natural weapons.

 

In practice: A melee level 6 attacks a level 3. Level_6 has 39% chance to penetrate Level_3's armor. Level_3 has 20 DR against Level_6's damage type, but when armor penetration happens (39%), the DR is reduced from 20 to 5. A 10 damage graze that would normally do 2 damage (MIN) instead does 5 damage. 

A level 3 attacking a level 6 would have a 27% chance to penetrate armor etc.

 

b) You could make DR a roll instead. E.g. 20 DR would become 1-20 (d20) DR, meaning the person or monster would block a different amount of damage each time. Less predictability = excitement.

 

c) Add a deflection and reflex penalty to armor; from -20 on heavy armor to -5 on light armor and -10 or -15 for everything in between. The tank doesn't care about the recovery penalty. This could be combined with a) or b).

 

 

-Shields

The other half of the invulnerability problem is, of course, high deflection. A superb heavy shield provides more deflection than 9 level-ups. More than any base class deflection.

 

To make the player slightly less untouchable*, I propose to transform the deflection of shields into a chance to convert a crit into a hit, a hit into a graze and a graze into a miss. 

A shield that previously had 16 deflection would instead have a 24% chance (16 x 1.5) to convert incoming attacks.

This percentage wouldn't stack additively with abilities that use the same mechanic and would be checked separately (if one fails the other can still trigger).

 

*MISS MISS MISS (MIN). Good luck going through 1000 health, monsters.

 

 

 

 

2nd part incoming...

[Valorian]

-Incapacitating AoE spells

Scrolls, spells and even invocations that can paralyze, induce sleep, petrify, dominate, confuse etc. Halve base duration or make it single target. Especially the scroll of paralysis ("slightly weaker" isn't enough).

It trivializes combat encounters.

 

 

-Economy

Triple all prices in shops, inns and for enchanting/crafting. Also, items shouldn't "respawn" in shops, especially items such as scroll of paralysis.

Being able to buy magical items like potatoes isn't good for balance nor for feels. Some prices are way off (only 6 cp for 2 DR, +4/6 total to attributes after resting for 100-200 cp, 750 cp for auto win etc.)

My party is bathing in a pool of coins without killing blue/green circles, stealing or selling items.

 

 

-Summons

Maximum of 1 summon total per party at a time would increase combat quality. Drowning enemies in summons does not challenge produce.

The chanter's phantom stunlock is too strong, especially so early in the game. Replace his phantom with 2 shadows perhaps? Or downgrade the secondary attack (crit->hit, hit->graze, graze->miss or a flat -25 to accuracy) if the primary is a graze. 

 

 

*****

 

I like that the bestiary is pretty large and I love the mechanical symmetry; everyone functions within the same set of rules and on the same scale. Unlike some other relatively known rpgs from recent years where enemies seem to be transplanted from another parallel universe.

 

I think that more could have been done with differentiation though, further expanding bestiary. For example, in addition to darguls, why not have "ravenous darguls" with improved stats, reusing the same model with a few different colors.

 

Passive properties, such as vessels being resistant to mind affecting spells or spirits being resistant to paralyze, prone, stun and so on would be nice. Resistant, not immune, mirroring various priest prayers.

 

As of patch 1.05, 8 classes have the same base Endurance. Each time a base class difference is erased, it takes away from the uniqueness of each role. 

[Volourn]

"Maximum of 1 summon total per party at a time would increase combat quality."

 

One cna rgue pros and cons of your ideas but this one is just plain wrong. Dumbing down summons is silly. It's bad enough with one summoning per character. of course, enemies need to use summons more. Also, some enemies could be smart enough to avoid attacking summons and attacking their summoner like PCs are. For exmaple, I tend to avoid summon shadows and just attack the shade who created them if possible.

[b0rsuk]

1.2. Chanter's invocations. Classes like monks and ciphers, which I haven't played yet, fuel their main powers by being hit or hitting. Invocations are strong, particularly certain summons, and the 12 or more seconds timer before you can use them is supposed to keep them in check. The chanter doesn't need to be anywhere near an enemy for the timer to tick down though. This means that you can send your group, chanter included, at a choke point ~12+ seconds away and by the time one of your party members gets there followed by an enemy, the perma-stunning phantom will be ready, circumventing the purpose of the timer. You can, of course, also run with the entire group to the choke point and when you arrive the invocation will be ready.

 

I'd like the invocation timer to tick down only when a) an enemy is in range of the chant and b) when the chanter is not moving.

 

 

2. Two-stage passive and active attacks. I love those, for enemies and allies, because it adds variety to combat. However, I think that if the primary attack is a graze, then the secondary attack should be executed with halved accuracy. I remember Josh mentioning, many months ago, that two-stage attacks would take this into account.

It would reduce a chanter's invoked phantom capability to permastun things, for instance. (In addition to this, but not as important, attacks targeting fort./will/refl. could have 0/-75%/standard/+75% damage/duration to increase the value of these 3 defenses.)

 

 

3. With a full party I'm deleting and obliterating things left and right without using per rest abilities, and hardly losing any health. I decided to recruit as many people as possible because I am curious about their stories, but for the 2nd playthrough I plan to let 2 join at most to retain a bit of challenge hopefully. Everyone is able to dish out copious amount of damage with auto-attacks and per-encounter abilities and it's also pretty easy to equip people who are taking point with ridiculously high DR*. Sagani counts almost as 2 companions because of her animal and so does Kana with his summon spamming. I hope it is understood how powerful is to summon/have a thing that both deals decent damage and soaks damage.

 

*To alleviate the DR problem, all melee attacks could have a base 50% chance to halve the DR for that particular attack, representing the attacker hitting a weak spot on the armor.

 

 

4. Resting. I like resting restrictions, but wouldn't it be better to restrict resting by drastically increasing the price of camping supplies and having to use one (the healing herbs and whatnot that are part of it), even in 0-coin-resting zones, to be able to heal health? You'd be able to remove fatigue and restore per rest resources as usual, but restoring health would always require supplies. Also, instead of having 2 camping supplies slots, have 4, but increase the price 4 times or more for higher difficulties. After all, those camping supplies are very valuable if they can heal wounds and restore health. It could be a decent coin sink and would be more in line with the purpose of the stash (not going back and forth); deciding whether to use something expensive rather than deciding if you want to bother to travel to the nearest village to buy it for a couple of coins.

Minor: I thought the purpose of 4 quick slots is to have 4 items in total that you can use during combat, not 20.

 

 

*****

 

That's that on a macro level, for now, avoiding the feels tangent. Regarding feels, I would love fighters to get to pick a combat style at level 1 as a mandatory choice, for example. I would like to make him a dual-wielding "expert", but there were things to pick that I found more essential than an attack speed bonus and since everyone is able to dual-wield just fine without any talents (bad feels)... Maybe at higher levels?

PoE's combat is very good. Among other things, I like how the variety of afflictions and effects that some monsters apply on-hit add to combat complexity and diversity, I like that there's no level scaling, I like the engagement mechanics etc. 

 

I avoided the beta, videos, and all topics that could contain information about main and side content, including "balance" topics and I will continue to do so until I finish the game. I plan to avoid even my own topic till then. See you in a week or 2.

 

I like your observations and suggestions about 1.2. "2" is probably a good idea as well.

 

3. It is clearly understood summons are powerful. That's why the most powerful summons are on Chanter, the class who can't cast any spell repeatedly in short time frame. Druids can summon Blights, yes, but they're single creatures and not that tough. Aside from that, no one can summon.

 

Many people don't like bestiary XP at all, and they won't like expanding it. That's because it forces them into killing stuff, and not everyone enjoys killing everything on every map.

 

DR already has a limit: it never lowers damage below 20%. It also does nothing to protect from secondary attacks, like Knock Down, Hobbled, poison, stun, Blind etc. High Deflection often makes you avoid those attacks altogether. Of two main ways of protecting characters - Deflection and DR - DR is the weaker and less popular. You pay a high price for it in action speed. If there is a problem, it's that DR is not attractive enough.

Finally, what difficulty do you play on ? If it's Normal, then you can get away with all kinds of sloppy play.

 

4. That proposal would just encourage resting every single encounter and blasting everything with spells. So what that health isn't restored if you lose very little every fight, because you can use your max level spells with impunity ? People who like per encounter abilities have tons of MMO's to play. Per rest resource management is actually something unique these days.

4x camping supply cost wouldn't be enough. Most players are swimming in money. You can end the game with something like 70 000, a fully built Stronghold, pretty heavy use of enchanting/crafting and buying the items you like.

 

I'm not sure what's your stance on resting. For resting limits that can't be circumvented with just traveling to an inn, there are other suggestions in other threads. For example areas with optional quests have their entrances blocked if you leave, or monsters (but not loot) respawn, or there's a time limit.

[anameforobsidian]

1.  This seems like a somewhat fabricated problem, since many if not most of your enemies are faster than you, which means running positioning requires a certain type of build.  If you're playing to the tactics of your build, then I don't really think its a problem.

 

Also, a party with a barbarian would not want you to bottleneck in doorways.  Really druids and wizards don't play best that way either.

 

2.  Chanter invocations are powerful because 12 seconds is a hellaciously long time in PE.  Wizards could have cast three slickens by then.  For most non-boss battles, invocations are combat finishers.

 

3.  Yes summons are powerful, but by mid-game the phantom is nowhere near as invulnerable as you make him out to be.  A lot of enemies can wipe them out.  It sounds like you're tanking with summons, which requires some careful maneuvering, and sounds like its prone to faceroll or die depending on how much aggro they can hold.  Also, enemies are chewing through my DR on PoD, it's pretty much deflection or bust.

 

4.  Resting works well the way it is.  With only two of them, it's already a pretty tough decision whether to wait or not.  The cost in time is more important than the cost in money to players anyways, if not the party.

 

 

About dual-wielding, unless you're a barbarian, dual wield suffers from some heavy damage penalties compared to two-handers and deflection penalties compared to sword and shield (especially a bashing shield).  We.... don't like to talk about single weapon style.  Speed is what dual-wielding is best at.  

Edited May 5, 2015 by anameforobsidian

[Valorian]

"Maximum of 1 summon total per party at a time would increase combat quality."

 

One cna rgue pros and cons of your ideas but this one is just plain wrong. Dumbing down summons is silly. 

 

You don't agree that limiting the number of summons that can be active simultaneously would increase challenge, Volourn?

Summon spam dumbs down combat.

 

 

 

 

DR already has a limit: it never lowers damage below 20%. 

 

 

I'm not sure what's your stance on resting. 

 

 

20% is negligible (in between all the misses). You can regenerate that damage in an instant through various means. An action speed penalty on your damage sponge is meaningless because you have 5 people behind that person who can fight in commoner clothes.

 

My stance on resting is that I would like significant prices for regenerating per rest abilities and health, in the context of bathing in coins. 

 

 

 

How is it not a problem, anameforobsidian, when AI breaks and sends 1 creature to chase you while everyone else goes back? You need just 1 character with enough movement speed.

[Valorian]

 

 

2.  Chanter invocations are powerful because 12 seconds is a hellaciously long time in PE.  Wizards could have cast three slickens by then.  For most non-boss battles, invocations are combat finishers.

 

3.  Yes summons are powerful, but by mid-game the phantom is nowhere near as invulnerable as you make him out to be.  A lot of enemies can wipe them out.  It sounds like you're tanking with summons, which requires some careful maneuvering, and sounds like its prone to faceroll or die depending on how much aggro they can hold.  Also, enemies are chewing through my DR on PoD, it's pretty much deflection or bust.

 

4.  Resting works well the way it is.  With only two of them, it's already a pretty tough decision whether to wait or not.  The cost in time is more important than the cost in money to players anyways, if not the party.

 

 

 

But the point was that you don't have to fight while the chanter chants for 12 seconds.

 

I'm not tanking with summons. I rarely used summons. It would have been utter overkill.

 

That's not a meaningful decision within the context of the game. Player's time vs in-game money.

[anameforobsidian]

How is it not a problem, anameforobsidian, when AI breaks and sends 1 creature to chase you while everyone else goes back? You need just 1 character with enough movement speed.

 

Sorry, that was part of a larger post that's been edited in.  That's not a problem with chanter abilities, if anything it's a problem with AI.  But I still fail to see the problem with playing tactics to pick of stragglers.  Pulling is itself a skill, and you're saying that the game encourages you to use hit-and-run guerilla tactics through a slight incentive system.  Or to put it another way, that playing the game well is rewarded.  And lets be honest, you're party is probably going to curbstomp that one lone xaurip or troll you pulled away anyways.

 

Finally, all it takes is one of the many enemies with charm (ciphers, wisps, spores, vithracks, and fampyrs) or slow/root ranged abilities (druids, adelmegans, spiders) and there's a good chance your pulling character is mincemeat, especially indoors.

 

 

 

 

 

2.  Chanter invocations are powerful because 12 seconds is a hellaciously long time in PE.  Wizards could have cast three slickens by then.  For most non-boss battles, invocations are combat finishers.

 

3.  Yes summons are powerful, but by mid-game the phantom is nowhere near as invulnerable as you make him out to be.  A lot of enemies can wipe them out.  It sounds like you're tanking with summons, which requires some careful maneuvering, and sounds like its prone to faceroll or die depending on how much aggro they can hold.  Also, enemies are chewing through my DR on PoD, it's pretty much deflection or bust.

 

4.  Resting works well the way it is.  With only two of them, it's already a pretty tough decision whether to wait or not.  The cost in time is more important than the cost in money to players anyways, if not the party.

 

 

 

But the point was that you don't have to fight while the chanter chants for 12 seconds.

 

I'm not tanking with summons. I rarely used summons. It would have been utter overkill.

 

That's not a meaningful decision within the context of the game. Player's time vs in-game money.

 

 

Player's time vs. in-game money is a meaningful decision to the player if not the game system.  In the system itself, using camping supplies itself is always a negative, since it would almost always be better for the player to run back to the stronghold every time they need to rest.  That way you get bonuses the camp supplies can't supply, for free.  They are only valuable because they are both a convenience and moderately scarce; making them scarcer could possibly decrease their utility and conversely make them less valuable or make gameplay more tedious.

Edited May 5, 2015 by anameforobsidian

[Volourn]

"You don't agree that limiting the number of summons that can be active simultaneously would increase challenge, Volourn?

Summon spam dumbs down combat."

 

Nope. Summon spam doesn't dumb down combat. Devs who can't plan for 'summon spam' dumb down combat ie. BIO with BG into BG2. DUMB,

[Valorian]

 

Sorry, that was part of a larger post that's been edited in.  That's not a problem with chanter abilities, if anything it's a problem with AI.  But I still fail to see the problem with playing tactics to pick of stragglers.  Pulling is itself a skill, and you're saying that the game encourages you to use hit-and-run guerilla tactics through a slight incentive system.  Or to put it another way, that playing the game well is rewarded.  And lets be honest, you're party is probably going to curbstomp that one lone xaurip or troll you pulled away anyways.

 

Finally, all it takes is one of the many enemies with charm (ciphers, wisps, spores, vithracks, and fampyrs) or slow/root ranged abilities (druids, adelmegans, spiders) and there's a good chance your pulling character is mincemeat, especially indoors.

 

 

 

Player's time vs. in-game money is a meaningful decision to the player if not the game system.  In the system itself, using camping supplies itself is always a negative, since it would almost always be better for the player to run back to the stronghold every time they need to rest.  That way you get bonuses the camp supplies can't supply, for free.  They are only valuable because they are both a convenience and moderately scarce; making them scarcer could possibly decrease their utility and conversely make them less valuable or make gameplay more tedious.

 

 

Pulling is a skill when it's challenging; if it requires, for instance, real time management of several characters. In PoE, it's not a skill. It's a cheap way to decimate an AI that's already extremely weak. Therefore, enemies in a group should chase as a group once a member of the encounter sees you and they shouldn't stop. 

Chanter abilities being positively affected by pulling is a different problem inherent to chanting mechanics.

 

 

 

I disagree. The player shouldn't be required to choose between his time and strategic resources in the game (like money). The question before resting should be: "do I spend this resource (money) or not?", not "do I wait through a couple of loading screens or not?"

[anameforobsidian]

 

I disagree. The player shouldn't be required to choose between his time and strategic resources in the game (like money). The question before resting should be: "do I spend this resource (money) or not?", not "do I wait through a couple of loading screens or not?"

 

First of all, there's no reason resting should have long-term tradeoffs.  Resting is a short term gain that replenishes a constantly diminishing resource.  Yes, health is restored, but you'll lose it again.

 

1.  Basically, expensive resting would make it easily possible to create a complete fail state, where you have to restart 30 hours of game because you bought a new sword or rested one too many times.

2.  Therefore, there has to be a cost free or low cost place to rest.

3.  Since resting in the wilderness confers no bonuses, it always better if you are maximizing player resources to go back and get free rest.

4.  Therefore, from a systems perspective there is never a reason to rest in the wilderness (save the final dungeon).  Resting in the wilderness never was and can never be a systemically hard choice due to reason one.

5.  The only reason resting is not limited to very specific zones is to avoid tedium.  Yes campfire resting is powerful, but it is almost always less powerful than easily obtainable inn-resting.

6.  Raising the price of campfire resting would only incentivize tedium, thus being antithetical to the system itself.  We accept some hard limits on resting to avoid degenerate gameplay, but the hard limits are already in place and effective.  BG2 style sleepwalkers are gone.

 

 

Other random arguments against high cost campfire resting-

• Classes with many per encounter resources gain a much stronger advantage over classes with a per rest resources.
• If the game is giving to much gold, the better solution is generally global rather than specific inflation.
• The resources resting is curing are already capped short term resources.
• Resting is just as frequently not a choice.  It is very often that you have to rest.  Then the system is putting fees on the inevitable.

Edited May 6, 2015 by anameforobsidian

[Drath]

To lure or not to lure? Well I think Obsidian would approve of luring, after all the old Black Isle devs made Trials of the Luremaster
But seriously, when facing Forest Trolls/Forest Lurkers/various elemental Blights that move slower than party members, I don't really feel that luring/pelting them at range is an issue. Ditto for luring enemies to choke points as you mentioned. As for luring with speed buffs on or with fast animal companions (ie Itumaak) and splitting the enemy group, IMHO, that's a good deal more contentious. Having the enemy group pursue the party as a whole would be nice as you've stated. Enemies should not abandon pursuit if they are gaining on the target. When enemies do abandon pursuit due to being outdistanced and start walking back slowly, they should again chase the party as a group if any member is hit/targetted again.

[Valorian]

Drath, indeed, it would be nice if they functioned as a group without abandoning pursuit, but what happens is they often stop moving altogether at a certain point while returning to their original spot and only react if you hit them (not if they see you). I had to cease doing it after a few times to preserve some resemblance of challenge. I imagine that I'll sometimes need to lure enemies to choke points if I decide to have a solo playthrough and I really don't want AI to implode like that while doing so.

 

 

 

 

I disagree. The player shouldn't be required to choose between his time and strategic resources in the game (like money). The question before resting should be: "do I spend this resource (money) or not?", not "do I wait through a couple of loading screens or not?"

 

 

 

1.  Basically, expensive resting would make it easily possible to create a complete fail state, where you have to restart 30 hours of game because you bought a new sword or rested one too many times.

 

3.  Since resting in the wilderness confers no bonuses, it always better if you are maximizing player resources to go back and get free rest.

 

5.  The only reason resting is not limited to very specific zones is to avoid tedium.  Yes campfire resting is powerful, but it is almost always less powerful than easily obtainable inn-resting.

 

 

 

 

It would and should be possible. The player should be able to fail, at least on "Expert" or "Hard". That's what harder difficulty levels are for; to provide challenging decisions.

 

You know, I don't think that resting (in the form of "replenish everything") for free should be a thing. Camping supplies should be the cheapest option (doesn't mean they have to be trivially cheap, on the contrary). I'd like something relatively cheap to remove fatigue, something expensive to replenish health, and something more expensive to restore per rest abilities/items. These three things don't have to be lumped together.

That would make per encounter abilities more powerful, yes, but they could be balanced accordingly.

 

Nobody mentioned specific zones to rest in this topic. The current resting system incentivizes tedium, though it's not a game-breaking sort of tedium by any means.

[Khalid the bear]

there is a food item that reduces fatigue, but it either doesnt work, or it restores trivialy small amout of fatigue (it doesnt prevent fatigued status nor does it remove it) goldroot chew or something like that

[Valorian]

True, and as you noted it's not very practical.

 

While discussing resting is important (because strategic decisions should matter), it doesn't affect combat more than armor DR, shield deflection, AoE disables, summons, billionaire simulator and AI not working in certain situations. I know I mentioned it in the first place, but it has taken a life of its own and monopolized the topic. 

[scrotiemcb]

While discussing resting is important (because strategic decisions should matter), it doesn't affect combat more than armor DR, shield deflection, AoE disables, summons, billionaire simulator and AI not working in certain situations. I know I mentioned it in the first place, but it has taken a life of its own and monopolized the topic.

Scrotie's law: that which is not controversial requires no internet discussion.

[Valorian]

I knew I should've inserted that's not how it was done in the IE games :ragey disappointment: somewhere in the title!