EI Mod and my opinions

[Sensuki]

Okay, so then what are you interested in discussing?

Better Call Saul ?

[Hiro Protagonist II]

Okay, so then what are you interested in discussing? 

 

Asking because if your intent is just to vent, sneer, trash the game, and wave your massive e-peen around, I'd like to know so I can just ignore you for the time being.

 

And you aren't throwing insults and sneering at others? How about take your own advice and contribute to the discussion.

[Hassat Hunter]

your tank got CC'ed? Reload...

People do this???

 

I've finished plenty of PoE battles where my main tanks got knocked down but my heroic line-up saved the day, pushing enemies away, CC'ing them, possibly converting them, using endurance restoring spells, casting defensives on the attacked one(s).

And it's a lot of fun!

 

No wonder people are not having fun if they just reload if things go back rather than skin-over-teeth trying to brink out the victory in a fight that totally went wrong-way on you, and the satisfaction of still winning then.

[Sensuki]

I have to admit, I reload most of the time if I think I've made a big enough mistake and/or if a character gets KO'd. Most of my characters in my save have a few knockouts, mostly were from luckshots / stuff that happened at the end of the battle.

 

My PC got critted by the explosion of a Fire Blight dying in the Maerwald fight right at the end for like 80 damage, KO. Stuff like that. No point reloading at that stage.

 

I don't enjoy the lenient Health System design, I prefer just straight HP.

 

Can see why it was done, because most people reloaded if a character died in the Infinity Engine games rather than healed them, although I accepted that as a failure and I don't have anything against reloading.

Edited April 13, 2015 by Sensuki

[Hiro Protagonist II]

 

Okay. Just did a video to show you how enemies like Drakes ignore your ranged characters. In fact, one drake flies through my ranged characters.  Skip to 1.50 minute mark to see it happen.

 

LOL. I *wish* the drakes had done that to my ranged characters. Another place where I got toasted a couple of times.

 

You definitely play with your ranged characters further back than I do. This is, I guess, another reason that enemy LOS should be just as good as your own. Imagine how much tenser it would be if some enemies had better vision than that of your party. That's something I'd like to see.

 

 

That was just an example. And also to highlight that I can send durance in stark naked and throw healing spells at Eder and a lot of enemies will often ignore him. Sometimes I play with my firing squad a way back and other times they're close together.

[Sensuki]

A lot of that has to do with the fact that the AI is designed around the engagement AI targeting clauses rather than just the closest unit. The movement targeting loop is too slow to allow enemies to detect nearby ranged characters as they run past.

 

I reported that as a bug in the beta, but I suppose they thought it was low priority.

 

Reported quite a few AI and Pathfinding bugs/issues between v435 and release that were never fixed. Shame to see them make it into the release version, but I suppose budget etc - they're things that probably don't bother most people.

Edited April 13, 2015 by Sensuki

[Malekith]

PrimeJunta, on 13 Apr 2015 - 3:58 PM, said:

 

 

So how about we discuss the various ways the encounters could be made more difficult and varied, preferably within the general parameters of the P:E design?

 

Well, that's my problem. Maybe i lack imagination, but i cannot think Obsidian could do something to improve the gameplay, because the design parameters are the problem.

Well, they should have way less copy paste encounters, and preferable cut the overal combat in the game to half the amound it has. But the actual gameplay would be just as boring, and the same tactic would work on everything.

It's not an accident that the only interesting spells in the game are the realy OP ones, that singlehandely change the flow of battle.

In order for the game to get interesting, it would require a system redesign, abandon the no hard counter policy, and completely remake the itemization (my biggest disapointment with the game currently)

[Malekith]

As this topic has turned into lets leave our complaints about PoE let me leave mine:

1. I want monsters to be immune or extremely resistant to elements and status effects. I want to be forced to do encounters with different spells/abilities. What is the point of even having different Armor values when I never need to switch weapons or spells I use? (and then I want to be able to equip stuff from inventory during combat into quickslots)

 

2. I want more spells/abilities that do more than just give a +/- 10/20 to accuracy or some defense or armor. Things like Prone, Charm/Confuse and Petrify need to exist more as well as abilities/spells that counter it.

 

3. Fix fracking pathfinding in combat or let me move my tank few pixels to make space without getting a disengagement attack for it.

 

4. If I turn off AI targeting, then fracking turn off AI targeting for real.

 

5. Stronghold :/ :/ - bad both mechanically and storywise. Maybe someone should actually notice (except for bandits that don't have a problem taking your taxes and attacking the Keep) you are a major land owner now and act accordingly instead of treating you like a scrub.

100% this

[PrimeJunta]

Well, that's my problem. Maybe i lack imagination, but i cannot think Obsidian could do something to improve the gameplay, because the design parameters are the problem.

Well, they should have way less copy paste encounters, and preferable cut the overal combat in the game to half the amound it has. But the actual gameplay would be just as boring, and the same tactic would work on everything.

It's not an accident that the only interesting spells in the game are the realy OP ones, that singlehandely change the flow of battle.

In order for the game to get interesting, it would require a system redesign, abandon the no hard counter policy, and completely remake the itemization (my biggest disapointment with the game currently)

 

 

Better encounter design, +1.

 

No hard counter policy: I think simply cranking up the resistances significantly would be sufficient. Since CC abilities don't have to last long to be highly effective, grazing with a status effect often is functionally equal to hitting or critting with a status effect. This makes CC way more powerful than DD all around. Getting rid of status effect grazes would already make things a lot more interesting as you couldn't just Slicken high-resistance enemies. I.e. I see that as a numbers issue rather than a fundamental design problem.

 

Re itemization, IMO it's not as bad as that -- better than BG1, although not as good as BG2. However I find the enchantment system rather dull: it's too easy to slap enchantments on things, which makes found items much less interesting. If you had to at least trek to a workbench to enchant, it would already be a good deal more interesting. The biggest flaw with itemization IMO is that the truly unique items are disappointing; they should be powerful enough that you'd want to build a character just to use them (cf Crom Faeyr or Carsomyr).

 

Again, these aren't systemic design issues IMO, but balancing/numbers issues.

[PrimeJunta]

 

Okay, so then what are you interested in discussing?

Better Call Saul ?

 

Is that a TV show? I don't watch TV, so sorry, nothing to say about that.

[PrimeJunta]

 

Okay, so then what are you interested in discussing? 

 

Asking because if your intent is just to vent, sneer, trash the game, and wave your massive e-peen around, I'd like to know so I can just ignore you for the time being.

 

And you aren't throwing insults and sneering at others? How about take your own advice and contribute to the discussion.

 

Thank you. I will try.

[Tartantyco]

A simple fix for the "lone tank" syndrome, and one I've suggested before, is to add penalties for each enemy attacking a character that exceeds their engagement limit. So, if your tank has an engagement limit of 3, he'll get penalized if 4 enemies are attacking him, and it will increase exponentially as more enemies attack. This would be in addition to the current flanking system.

[Hassat Hunter]

You couldn't know that the dialogue with the guy you came to assassinate would end in a battle?

In about 25% of the cases did I actually assassinate the person send to kill (bounties excluded of course).

 

It infact was more common for me to assassinate the person who asked me to assassinate another person in the end.

 

And sometimes everyone died, and sometimes no one died.

 

So no, I don't think that was a given.

[archangel979]

A simple fix for the "lone tank" syndrome, and one I've suggested before, is to add penalties for each enemy attacking a character that exceeds their engagement limit. So, if your tank has an engagement limit of 3, he'll get penalized if 4 enemies are attacking him, and it will increase exponentially as more enemies attack. This would be in addition to the current flanking system.

My Eder has 4 engagement limit and the secondary melee easily takes care of what is left. This is not a solution.

[Sensuki]

I don't think higher resistances does much, because all it does is change your encounter strategy and there's a minimum 20% damage rule.

 

and yeah it's a TV show.

 

A simple fix for the "lone tank" syndrome, and one I've suggested before, is to add penalties for each enemy attacking a character that exceeds their engagement limit. So, if your tank has an engagement limit of 3, he'll get penalized if 4 enemies are attacking him, and it will increase exponentially as more enemies attack. This would be in addition to the current flanking system.

I don't think that would do much good, especially for Fighters with Defender mode (and Hold the Line) because there's only so much room for enemies to attack them and units with larger selection circles block the pathing space.

Edited April 13, 2015 by Sensuki

[Luckmann]

A simple fix for the "lone tank" syndrome, and one I've suggested before, is to add penalties for each enemy attacking a character that exceeds their engagement limit. So, if your tank has an engagement limit of 3, he'll get penalized if 4 enemies are attacking him, and it will increase exponentially as more enemies attack. This would be in addition to the current flanking system.

 

This would just overemphasize tanks even more, and you'd only transfer the issue from "One tank" to "Two tanks", it wouldn't change the system or address the issues in any notable way. Nevermind the fact that you're unlikely to actually engage that many enemies at once except in rare situations; positioning takes care of that.

Edited April 13, 2015 by Luckmann

[PrimeJunta]

A simple fix for the "lone tank" syndrome, and one I've suggested before, is to add penalties for each enemy attacking a character that exceeds their engagement limit. So, if your tank has an engagement limit of 3, he'll get penalized if 4 enemies are attacking him, and it will increase exponentially as more enemies attack. This would be in addition to the current flanking system.

 

It's very rare that you'd have room for more than 4 enemies to attack a single target, unless you count ranged enemies which I think would get problematic for a number of reasons.

[Malekith]

PrimeJunta, on 13 Apr 2015 - 4:41 PM, said:PrimeJunta, on 13 Apr 2015 - 4:41 PM, said:

 

Malekith, on 13 Apr 2015 - 4:32 PM, said:Malekith, on 13 Apr 2015 - 4:32 PM, said:

Well, that's my problem. Maybe i lack imagination, but i cannot think Obsidian could do something to improve the gameplay, because the design parameters are the problem.

Well, they should have way less copy paste encounters, and preferable cut the overal combat in the game to half the amound it has. But the actual gameplay would be just as boring, and the same tactic would work on everything.

It's not an accident that the only interesting spells in the game are the realy OP ones, that singlehandely change the flow of battle.

In order for the game to get interesting, it would require a system redesign, abandon the no hard counter policy, and completely remake the itemization (my biggest disapointment with the game currently)

 

 

Better encounter design, +1.

 

No hard counter policy: I think simply cranking up the resistances significantly would be sufficient. Since CC abilities don't have to last long to be highly effective, grazing with a status effect often is functionally equal to hitting or critting with a status effect. This makes CC way more powerful than DD all around. Getting rid of status effect grazes would already make things a lot more interesting as you couldn't just Slicken high-resistance enemies. I.e. I see that as a numbers issue rather than a fundamental design problem.

 

Re itemization, IMO it's not as bad as that -- better than BG1, although not as good as BG2. However I find the enchantment system rather dull: it's too easy to slap enchantments on things, which makes found items much less interesting. If you had to at least trek to a workbench to enchant, it would already be a good deal more interesting. The biggest flaw with itemization IMO is that the truly unique items are disappointing; they should be powerful enough that you'd want to build a character just to use them (cf Crom Faeyr or Carsomyr).

 

Again, these aren't systemic design issues IMO, but balancing/numbers issues.

 

Well, if you crank up the resistances to the point of resempling hard counters then yes, you can call it a numbers issue, not a design one. But then it defeats the whole point of not having hard counters in the first place.

And for me itemization is worse than BG1, to the point i would prefer if PoE abandoned the whole "magic items" consept and just have the same mundane weapons through the whole game.

BG1 was more low level than PoE, but the few Special items felt more special than anything PoE has. Varsona +2, The spider bane, ring of wizardy, gauntlets of dexterity,the +3 gratshord in Durlang's tower.... Varscona is just a +2 sword with added cold damage. But when it's the ONLY +2 sword in the whole game, and the only weapon that has cold damage, it feels Special. in a way that PoE's diablo inspired loot doesn't

Nothing in PoE comes close to these items. And in BG1 you didn't fought dragons for them.

Dragon scales in BG2-> you craft a special set armor, unique to the whole game

Dragon scales in PoE-> enchanting adds +2 to your sh ity armor

Edited April 13, 2015 by Malekith

[Tartantyco]

 

A simple fix for the "lone tank" syndrome, and one I've suggested before, is to add penalties for each enemy attacking a character that exceeds their engagement limit. So, if your tank has an engagement limit of 3, he'll get penalized if 4 enemies are attacking him, and it will increase exponentially as more enemies attack. This would be in addition to the current flanking system.

My Eder has 4 engagement limit and the secondary melee easily takes care of what is left. This is not a solution.

 

 

Why should your tanks not be able to deal with the amount of enemies that their engagement limit allows them? I mean, if your tank has an engagement limit of 5, then him being in combat with 5 enemies shouldn't be an issue. The issue with tanks is not them tanking a lot of enemies, it's them tanking all the enemies. It also makes mob enemies more dangerous.

[tinderbox]

 

PrimeJunta, on 13 Apr 2015 - 3:58 PM, said:

 

 

So how about we discuss the various ways the encounters could be made more difficult and varied, preferably within the general parameters of the P:E design?

 

Well, that's my problem. Maybe i lack imagination, but i cannot think Obsidian could do something to improve the gameplay, because the design parameters are the problem.

Well, they should have way less copy paste encounters, and preferable cut the overal combat in the game to half the amound it has. But the actual gameplay would be just as boring, and the same tactic would work on everything.

It's not an accident that the only interesting spells in the game are the realy OP ones, that singlehandely change the flow of battle.

In order for the game to get interesting, it would require a system redesign, abandon the no hard counter policy, and completely remake the itemization (my biggest disapointment with the game currently)

 

 

You start an encounter. Suddenly enemies spawn on a random chance and approach you from behind. That area you thought was cleared you missed a creature (cuz POTD) and now there's an Ogre bearing down on your squishies. Or a party of hardcore looters. Or something like that.

 

Do the same with reinforcements spawning "behind" when X% of foes drop dead.

 

Tinker with fog of war so it no longer always favours the PC party.

 

Give enemies stealthing capabilities so that, if they detect you, they might sneak up on you too.

 

It's all about upsetting control. How can you upset the control of the party, make the situation threatening and force them to do something different. Or even to play differently (you mean i have to watch my back as well as my front?)

 

In BG2, one of the worst experiences I had was Minsc getting possessed because he could easily chunk most of the rest of my party once he got going.  (More) stuff like this -- those spore things are a right bastard.

[archangel979]

 

 

A simple fix for the "lone tank" syndrome, and one I've suggested before, is to add penalties for each enemy attacking a character that exceeds their engagement limit. So, if your tank has an engagement limit of 3, he'll get penalized if 4 enemies are attacking him, and it will increase exponentially as more enemies attack. This would be in addition to the current flanking system.

My Eder has 4 engagement limit and the secondary melee easily takes care of what is left. This is not a solution.

 

 

Why should your tanks not be able to deal with the amount of enemies that their engagement limit allows them? I mean, if your tank has an engagement limit of 5, then him being in combat with 5 enemies shouldn't be an issue. The issue with tanks is not them tanking a lot of enemies, it's them tanking all the enemies. It also makes mob enemies more dangerous.

 

I have yet to have a tough fight that needed more than Eder to tank 4 melee and secondary melee to tank up 2 more. Some enemies are also ranged while others teleport and ignore tanks anyways.

[MReed]

 

 

A more typical party configuration will have one (maybe two) people that are far more capable of dealing with melee attacks, 2-3 characters that have some resistance to damage, and 2-3 characters that have practically no ability to resist damage.  Not surprisingly, the different characters have different preferred engagement models:  the better a character can deal with melee damage, the more likely they are to making melee attacks themselves (& vice versa).

 

To take a real-world example, if the police are negotiating with an armed suspect and have a sniper available to them, should they send the sniper in (rather than positioned on, say, a nearby rooftop) with the negotiation team, because otherwise the negotiation team will feel unprotected?

 

 

See? And this is exactly the problem I am talking about: mono-tanking is just way too effective and needs to be nerfed with the power of the eternal pillows.

 

I agree with this -- the delta between "max defense / no offense" configuration and "no defense / max offense" is far, far too extreme in PoE.  By the end of the game, Eder rarely took any net endurance damage (equipped with a draining weapon, retaliation armor, and a good shield), and therefore totally trivialized any encounter where I could ensure that all the attacks would hit him.

 

 

If I'd forced to bring one or two offtanks into battle, the situation would change dramatically. Not only would it look more realistic, but it would also instantly create new tactical situations that weren't there before. Suddenly, my AoEs wouldn't be as easy to position as before. Suddenly, the concentration score matters more. Suddenly, a mage learning defensive spells might be a good idea...

Having a sniper (as you brought up that example) hiding behind the stairs absolutely makes sense RP-wise. However, having 5 snipers and only one tank-to-rule them all is broken.

 

This, however, I strongly disagree with, at least if I'm reading it properly.  If you are saying that the game should use a "cutscene ambush" (where the game overrides my preference for how my party should be positioned prior to the beginning of a combat encounter) to force the player to place armor on someone other than the tank, then...  Well, I totally disagree.  The relative lack of cutscene ambushes is one of the things that PoE gets right, in my book.

 

It would be desirable in my opinion to:

 

1) Improve the foe AI so that it would be rare for only one character to be targeted by melee attacks -- this has to be done first, or nothing else in this list will make the slightest bit of difference.

2) Nerf the mechanics that penalize offensive potential when defensive potential is increased -- while such a mechanic is absolutely necessary (because otherwise, everyone will be max offense and max defense at the same time), the current mechanic (recovery time penalty) is so enormous that it totally overwhelms all other considerations.  A character that tried to "strike a balanced between offense and defense" will be inferior -- not enough defense (due the way DR and deflection works) to significantly reduce incoming damage, but a dramatic reduction in damage output (due to recovery time penalties).

3) Eliminate (or nerf to the point where it might as well be eliminated) engagement -- the primary effect of the current "strong engagement" mechanic is to penalize character concepts who need to go into melee combat and then withdraw.  Note that such character types are already penalized vs a "straight ranged" or "straight melee" character types, as they require far more micro-management (or skill, if you want to look at it that way) to be used effectively.  As it is, the current mechanics encourage creating "melee only" and "ranged only" character concepts exclusively.

4) Add foes that are not vulnerable to conventional attacks and / or attack the party in unconventional ways.  The only example of an unconventional attack in PoE is foes with domination-type abilities (especially Frampiers, who additionally prefer to target back-line characters with their abilities).

 

All of the above was noted in the backer beta (by various folks, not just myself) for the past 9 months, so...  For backer beta folks, it seems fairly obvious that Obsidian believes that feedback like the above is not something that they are interested in implementing in the game.  That makes it difficult to make constructive posts...

[PrimeJunta]

Well, if you crank up the resistances to the point of resempling hard counters then yes, you can call it a numbers issue, not a design one. But then it defeats the whole point of not having hard counters in the first place.

 

I think the deal with "no hard counters" wasn't really that. The impression I get is that Josh really dislikes win-or-die RNG effects. So it's more like the other way around. Umber Hulks are horrid until you discover Chaotic Commands; Kangaxx is incredibly scary until you find out about

Spell Immunity: Abjuration

after which he becomes trivial, that sort of thing. Having enemies with high (=near-hard) defenses is different. 

 

But that's really neither here nor there: whatever Josh thinks, the P:E mechanics have scope to be much more interesting, varied, and more difficult simply by adjusting the numbers.

 

I would like more depth in the magic system though, to allow for stuff like dropping a Hold Person on a Dire Charmed party member. Or countering it with a Charm Person of your own. That sort of thing. Mechanically/systemically, magic is where P:E falls furthest short of its IE counterparts IMO. Making and debugging a complex and rich magic system that isn't laughably broken though isn't easy; even P:E's relatively simple system has had problems like the way OP Slicken.

Edited April 13, 2015 by PrimeJunta

[Luckmann]

You start an encounter. Suddenly enemies spawn on a random chance and approach you from behind. That area you thought was cleared you missed a creature (cuz POTD) and now there's an Ogre bearing down on your squishies. Or a party of hardcore looters. Or something like that.

 

Do the same with reinforcements spawning "behind" when X% of foes drop dead.

 

[...]

Random enemies spawning at random without any rhyme or reason is the worst kind of lazy game design, all the way up there with inflated numbers. Having enemies pop up from nowhere in the middle of a battle would have me shutting down the game in sheer disgust.

 

It works in a limited capacity when it makes sense, but the way you describe it, it just sounds like DA2:s nonsensical and random teleportation of enemies into battle.

Edited April 13, 2015 by Luckmann

[Hassat Hunter]

Because rest spamming is avoiding the strategical concerns of the gameplay completely. Are you trying to justify it?

No, but neither do I use it as a dergetory term to insult other players and somehow hover above them, being "better", "more important" etc. without even knowing jack of said person or how he plays.

We all know you're not using it in this thread to denote a person using rest a lot in IE, but just as a thinly-veiled "Bitch"...

Rest spammer? I guess.

Responding to the argument by ignoring it and instead insult the player. Class A discussion method to win them. Except not.

 

And while you probably don't care since it's not about rest to you anyway, I don't rest much in either PoE nor the IE games. Yes, I've had dozens upon dozens of battles in PoE with some of my members having Major Fatigue.

You got a problem with that? Hmmm?

I highly doubt that, because many or most games have AI features that are the same every time you play them. So I suppose by that logic, learning how to easily beat Bowser in Super Mario 64 because you know his exact routine is AI exploiting as well.

So comparing a scripted AI cycle of abilities compared to the common AI routines used for all enemies in a game is somehow comparable now?

The further outside the core routine it goes, the less likely something happening is happening due to 'not intended'. However with pile upon pile of exceptions and modifications upon the core, furthering from it may also generate additional bugs.

 

AI isn't that simple, and it's impossible to make an 'unpredictable' AI since that would just be a random AI (and random generally doesn't constitude challenging). It's all pile upon pile of "If X do Y", or if you're really up for it "If A do - x% chance B, x% chance C, x% chance D", but in the end that of course too is predictable once you know it. Since there's no way good and unpredictable can be done with AI. That needs actual humans behind them. And their unpredictability isn't always of the 'good' kind either.

Another challenge needed is that you don't need to make enemies too smart. It's fairly easy to make an AI teleport on 25% out of range, heal up to 100% health and then restart combat with you. Does it make good gameplay? No.

Several people always wonder why they go for the tank and sometimes ignore others. But go and try an AI that completely annoys your tank, and murders off your support easily before going to him/her. Does this make a fun game? If at the start of every combat instantly your strongest partymember gets knocked out? I don't think so.

 

In the end, really, people will always complain about AI. That's how it is, and always shall be until we eventually make actual Artificial Intelligence that can think and act like a human, complete with errors in judgement and acting of course. But I don't see that happening in my lifetime.