EI Mod and my opinions

[Daemonjax]

I liked the combat in fallout tactics more than bg2.

 

Probably the most enjoyable recently made tactical game for me was xcom (referring to the 2012 version, but I also really enjoyed the tactical experience in the original).

Edited April 11, 2015 by Daemonjax

[Sensuki]

Fallout Tactics and XCOM are turn-based games. It would not surprise me that people who prefer turn based might enjoy Pillars of Eternity more because of the Engagement system and the auto-pause features. I don't use any auto-pause and I hate Engagement, I prefer fluid movement and positioning in combat, like RTS games and the Infinity Engine games.

 

Most of the devs want to make a turn-based game or prefer turn-based so it's unsurprising that they took this approach, I guess. TBH if the game was turn-based, it would probably be a lot better.

Edited April 11, 2015 by Sensuki

[Valsuelm]

 

Much of the IE mod's functions should be implemented in the game by Obsidian.

 

One shouldn't need a mod for:

 

One tooltip at a time

Blue Selection Circles

Autosave before transition

Walk mode

 

they anounced quality of life changes for 1.05 well have to waitfor patch notes to see which

 

those changes are obviously possible and not too hard to implement, but ithink bugfixes still have priority

 

 

Aye.

 

I totally understand that bug fixing needs priority.

 

With 18,583 unique downloads (and I'm not yet one of them) as of this post though, I think Obsidian should take note at how many people want what's in the IE mod, and at least implement the options that it has that are not gameplay changing in an upcoming official patch (other than the one that alters the backer stuff that is). Revisiting what is gameplay changing and in the mod should perhaps be done as well.

 

Hopefully we'll see some of the things the IE mod takes care of as well as the XP issue (as in it takes too little XP to level) addressed in 1.05.

[Daemonjax]

Fallout Tactics and XCOM are turn-based games. It would not surprise me that people who prefer turn based might enjoy Pillars of Eternity more because of the Engagement system and the auto-pause features. I don't use any auto-pause and I hate Engagement, I prefer fluid movement and positioning in combat, like RTS games and the Infinity Engine games.

 

Most of the devs want to make a turn-based game or prefer turn-based so it's unsurprising that they took this approach, I guess. TBH if the game was turn-based, it would probably be a lot better.

 

I guess the best rts game I played that's semi-recent is dawn of war (referring to the original, but DOW 2 was pretty OK).

 

But, yeah, I think tactical games are best played in turns.

Edited April 11, 2015 by Daemonjax

[Hassat Hunter]

Or it looks like he would never have been happy with the game from the start. I've been lurking the forums since the beta was released and while I think he did a great job finding bugs, I rarely agreed with the changes he pushed for mechanic-wise. That he doesn't even give the game a chance before modding the **** out of it and then leaves it completely out of frustration only tells me he made his mind up a long time ago.

It became pretty clear to me in reading his comments that he wanted a clone of Baldurs Gate, right down to the details, and simply wouldn't be happy with anything else.  I can't think of any differences between PoE and BG that he appeared to favor.  If I felt that way I'd go too - certainly appreciate the effort that he put into debugging, but I rarely agreed on design in the videos I watched / posts that I read.

And here I was thinking I was standing completely alone in that opinion.

And I found the PoE final battle much more fun than Sarevok.

Sarevok: *wand of monster summoning* x 10... WON!

 

As for the IEMod;

* I really like a 'proper' solid UI.

* Blue-circles?! YES!

* Tooltip didn't bother me till the crowded with companions Twin Elms.

 

That's about all I would include, the others just nerfing battle or overpowering the player too much. IMO.

[Jasta11]

Might give it another go somewhere down the line, but yeah, I'd rather just leave it and accept that the game was not made for people like me, but more for people who may have liked the Infinity Engine games, but disliked the combat.

 

That is fortunate for me, since it's exactly how I feel. No matter how tactical or deep D&D was supposed to be, combat in Baldur's Gate was a mixed bag, and an outright chore in BG2 as soon as a mage or something that was arbitrarily immune to +X weapons or less showed up.

 

I much prefer PoE's combat, even if it has its flaws. A focus on positioning is right up my alley, and tough fights do force you to react or come up with strategies. Obsidian should probably have added more spell-using enemies and varied up some encounters, but compared to the mess that was BG2 I'd much rather play that.

[TheBruce]

The companions are really uninteresting and tacky compared to those from the BG series. I never felt any attachment to them like I did with those from BG. Also the voice acting is no where near on the same level as the BG series.

[Hassat Hunter]

You surely must mean BG2, since BG1 didn't have any companion personality at all. Really.

 

Also, pretty sure it didn't have much of a VO for people either, it's BG2 that came up with the partial VO that PoE set forth (and IMO taken a bit too far).

[Luckmann]

 

Or it looks like he would never have been happy with the game from the start. I've been lurking the forums since the beta was released and while I think he did a great job finding bugs, I rarely agreed with the changes he pushed for mechanic-wise. That he doesn't even give the game a chance before modding the **** out of it and then leaves it completely out of frustration only tells me he made his mind up a long time ago.

It became pretty clear to me in reading his comments that he wanted a clone of Baldurs Gate, right down to the details, and simply wouldn't be happy with anything else.  I can't think of any differences between PoE and BG that he appeared to favor.  If I felt that way I'd go too - certainly appreciate the effort that he put into debugging, but I rarely agreed on design in the videos I watched / posts that I read.

And here I was thinking I was standing completely alone in that opinion.

And I found the PoE final battle much more fun than Sarevok.

Sarevok: *wand of monster summoning* x 10... WON!

 

As for the IEMod;

* I really like a 'proper' solid UI.

* Blue-circles?! YES!

* Tooltip didn't bother me till the crowded with companions Twin Elms.

 

That's about all I would include, the others just nerfing battle or overpowering the player too much. IMO.

 

 

The movement recovery penalty is ****ing ridiculous though, it serves no purpose, and removing it doesn't nerf battles or overpower the player at all.

 

 

You surely must mean BG2, since BG1 didn't have any companion personality at all. Really.

 

Also, pretty sure it didn't have much of a VO for people either, it's BG2 that came up with the partial VO that PoE set forth (and IMO taken a bit too far).

 

BG1 CNPC:s had loads of personality, and it conveyed those personalities largely without talky talky talky talky talk talk, which is a feat in itself. I'd take Xan over Aloth or Edwin over Pallegina any day of the week.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

I agree with everything Sensuki said about the game. I'm playing through it but feel it's not as good as the previous IE games. Combat is copy paste and if you send a tank up front and have a firing squad of 5 party members some distance away shooting everything, it's all very easy. So much so that I don't have my firing squad wear any armour. The A.I is exploitable even if you try not to exploit it. The A.I. is just plain dumb.

 

One of the things I do miss is the town/city life of the BG games, the banter and chatter, the hawkers trying to sell their wares, the voices that carry from out of nowhere that make the towns and cities feel alive. Just the hustle and bustle of life. This is missing in PoE. It's just music and rarely I hear someone speak. Most of town/city NPCs just stand there and pretty much do nothing. And most don't even walk or turn around when you click on them. And some areas of Defiance Bay feel deserted.

[TheBruce]

 

 

One of the things I do miss is the town/city life of the BG games, the banter and chatter, the hawkers trying to sell their wares, the voices that carry from out of nowhere that make the towns and cities feel alive. Just the hustle and bustle of life. This is missing in PoE. It's just music and rarely I hear someone speak. Most of town/city NPCs just stand there and pretty much do nothing. And most don't even walk or turn around when you click on them. And some areas of Defiance Bay feel deserted.

 

Yes exactly, that's another thing I was disappointed in. 

[RedSocialKnight]

I find the "no engagement" part of the mod very strange.

 

I understand why Sensuki dislikes it, although I disagree. But, engagement is a really central part of how combat is designed in PoE.

 

Remove engagement and it seems to me you're just sort of left with a scrum.

[Luckmann]

I find the "no engagement" part of the mod very strange.

 

I understand why Sensuki dislikes it, although I disagree. But, engagement is a really central part of how combat is designed in PoE.

 

Remove engagement and it seems to me you're just sort of left with a scrum.

 

Remove Engagement and nothing changes. The AI still acts like it's there. Engagement is not a very large part of how combat is designed in PoE, all it does is inhibit movement and forces everyone to cluster up and stay there, and saves the developers from having to make an AI that would move around and make decisions that would improve their position on the battlefield, for the same reason the player won't do it; it'll murder you with instant free invisible attacks if you even try to move *towards* the opponent that is engaging you.

 

The biggest problem with Engagement has always been for it to excuse it's own existence. I play with it on simply because the game is made for it, and there are Abilities and Spells and Talents that deal specifically with it, and I don't want to break pre-existing interacting functionalities, but it doesn't really add anything by itself.

[Jasta11]

 

I find the "no engagement" part of the mod very strange.

 

I understand why Sensuki dislikes it, although I disagree. But, engagement is a really central part of how combat is designed in PoE.

 

Remove engagement and it seems to me you're just sort of left with a scrum.

 

Remove Engagement and nothing changes. The AI still acts like it's there. Engagement is not a very large part of how combat is designed in PoE, all it does is inhibit movement and forces everyone to cluster up and stay there, and saves the developers from having to make an AI that would move around and make decisions that would improve their position on the battlefield, for the same reason the player won't do it; it'll murder you with instant free invisible attacks if you even try to move *towards* the opponent that is engaging you.

 

The biggest problem with Engagement has always been for it to excuse it's own existence. I play with it on simply because the game is made for it, and there are Abilities and Spells and Talents that deal specifically with it, and I don't want to break pre-existing interacting functionalities, but it doesn't really add anything by itself.

 

 

I can't think of any RPG that ever had half-decent AI myself. Certainly not the IE games where enemies almost always just mobbed the first thing they saw. Difficulty in RPGs single-player game has never, ever come from the AI anyway in my experience, unless it's a very tightly scripted boss battle. It's always hard by making the enemy bigger and badder than the player so they have a challenge to overcome.

 

Not really disagreeing with you, just pointing that out. Albeit I do think engagement is preferable to everyone running around willy-nilly like in Baldur's Gate, I love establishing a frontline.

[Luckmann]

 

 

I find the "no engagement" part of the mod very strange.

 

I understand why Sensuki dislikes it, although I disagree. But, engagement is a really central part of how combat is designed in PoE.

 

Remove engagement and it seems to me you're just sort of left with a scrum.

 

Remove Engagement and nothing changes. The AI still acts like it's there. Engagement is not a very large part of how combat is designed in PoE, all it does is inhibit movement and forces everyone to cluster up and stay there, and saves the developers from having to make an AI that would move around and make decisions that would improve their position on the battlefield, for the same reason the player won't do it; it'll murder you with instant free invisible attacks if you even try to move *towards* the opponent that is engaging you.

 

The biggest problem with Engagement has always been for it to excuse it's own existence. I play with it on simply because the game is made for it, and there are Abilities and Spells and Talents that deal specifically with it, and I don't want to break pre-existing interacting functionalities, but it doesn't really add anything by itself.

 

 

I can't think of any RPG that ever had half-decent AI myself. Certainly not the IE games where enemies almost always just mobbed the first thing they saw. Difficulty in RPGs single-player game has never, ever come from the AI anyway in my experience, unless it's a very tightly scripted boss battle. It's always hard by making the enemy bigger and badder than the player so they have a challenge to overcome.

 

Not really disagreeing with you, just pointing that out. Albeit I do think engagement is preferable to everyone running around willy-nilly like in Baldur's Gate, I love establishing a frontline.

 

 

I love establishing a frontline too, I wish it was possible in PoE without everything becoming a huge cluster unless I block a passage.. which I could do in the IE games too. Establishing a frontline was not hard in the IE games. If you screwed up, yes, you had to run willy-nilly for a second, but I think that's infinitely preferable to everyone just standing still and the entire combat amounting to repeated tank and spank.

 

And you're entirely right on the AI, really, but that's really not here nor there. The fact that AI:s have been terrible in the past is really no excuse for having a terrible on in PoE.

[Sensuki]

You can establish a frontline in the Infinity Engine games. The only difference is that with Engagement there is one correct way to position the party, and in the Infinity Engine games you can handle combat situations many different ways, dynamically.

 

If you struggled doing that in the Infinity Engine games it's because you didn't try and understand the AI targeting.

[Ohioastro]

There was a joke running around in D&D circles: A DM intones "you see a party of click-clacks coming around the corner; the players huddle in a corner, look at a book, and yell "November".  The DM sighs and says "the click-clacks fall dead..."

 

The IE games were basically like that - if you had memorized exactly what everything did and what hurt it the game was straightforward; but you had no way of knowing, really, outside of meta-gaming.  Similarly, a lot of the big fights relied on people standing outside of anonymous doors, buffing like the dickens, and running in casting very specific sequences of spells and actions.  Again, this is meta-gaming run rampant.  I find this aspect far, far less prevalent here than in the D&D games.

 

IE games also permitted absurd gaming of the AI through things like kiting; which at least the PoE system discourages. 

Edited April 12, 2015 by Ohioastro

[Daemonjax]

The biggest problem with Engagement has always been for it to excuse it's own existence. I play with it on simply because the game is made for it, and there are Abilities and Spells and Talents that deal specifically with it, and I don't want to break pre-existing interacting functionalities, but it doesn't really add anything by itself.

 

True, I wouldn't disable it for the same reason.  It's also works pretty much exactly how attacks of opportunity work in D&D 3.5, so I don't really have a problem with it.  

 

There's plenty of ways to break engagement.

[Sensuki]

There was a joke running around in D&D circles: A DM intones "you see a party of click-clacks coming around the corner; the players huddle in a corner, look at a book, and yell "November".  The DM sighs and says "the click-clacks fall dead..."

 

The IE games were basically like that - if you had memorized exactly what everything did and what hurt it the game was straightforward; but you had no way of knowing, really, outside of meta-gaming.  Similarly, a lot of the big fights relied on people standing outside of anonymous doors, buffing like the dickens, and running in casting very specific sequences of spells and actions.  Again, this is meta-gaming run rampant.  I find this aspect far, far less prevalent here than in the D&D games.

You can use a Thief to scout while Hiding in Shadows. In Pillars of Eternity you *always* know exactly what you're up against because of the Stealth system, you can always see pretty much every enemy before they see you and set up perfectly on them.

 

Rarely ever is the player 'surprised'.

 

IE games also permitted absurd gaming of the AI through things like kiting; which at least the PoE system discourages.

You can kite almost as easily in Pillars of Eternity. The biggest difference is that ranged weapons attack slower.

Edited April 12, 2015 by Sensuki

[Darkcloud1987]

 

 

I find the "no engagement" part of the mod very strange.

 

I understand why Sensuki dislikes it, although I disagree. But, engagement is a really central part of how combat is designed in PoE.

 

Remove engagement and it seems to me you're just sort of left with a scrum.

 

 

Remove Engagement and nothing changes. The AI still acts like it's there. Engagement is not a very large part of how combat is designed in PoE, all it does is inhibit movement and forces everyone to cluster up and stay there, and saves the developers from having to make an AI that would move around and make decisions that would improve their position on the battlefield, for the same reason the player won't do it; it'll murder you with instant free invisible attacks if you even try to move *towards* the opponent that is engaging you.

 

The biggest problem with Engagement has always been for it to excuse it's own existence. I play with it on simply because the game is made for it, and there are Abilities and Spells and Talents that deal specifically with it, and I don't want to break pre-existing interacting functionalities, but it doesn't really add anything by itself.

 

I can't think of any RPG that ever had half-decent AI myself. Certainly not the IE games where enemies almost always just mobbed the first thing they saw. Difficulty in RPGs single-player game has never, ever come from the AI anyway in my experience, unless it's a very tightly scripted boss battle. It's always hard by making the enemy bigger and badder than the player so they have a challenge to overcome.

 

Not really disagreeing with you, just pointing that out. Albeit I do think engagement is preferable to everyone running around willy-nilly like in Baldur's Gate, I love establishing a frontline.

I think this is especially true in Baldur's Gate. It is filled with Mages which would be some of the most powerful ones in Faerun if they only knew how to open a door and well were smart enough for a sensible spell selection and usage of their spells.

[Mr. Magniloquent]

 

Might give it another go somewhere down the line, but yeah, I'd rather just leave it and accept that the game was not made for people like me, but more for people who may have liked the Infinity Engine games, but disliked the combat.

 

That is fortunate for me, since it's exactly how I feel. No matter how tactical or deep D&D was supposed to be, combat in Baldur's Gate was a mixed bag, and an outright chore in BG2 as soon as a mage or something that was arbitrarily immune to +X weapons or less showed up.

 

I much prefer PoE's combat, even if it has its flaws. A focus on positioning is right up my alley, and tough fights do force you to react or come up with strategies. Obsidian should probably have added more spell-using enemies and varied up some encounters, but compared to the mess that was BG2 I'd much rather play that.

 

Ugh. Having a dragon be immune to +1 weapons and lower is no more arbitrary than a stone beetle with high slashing resistance. It's all justified by a combination of lore and creature design. There were dozens of very easy ways to kill mages in BG2--especially if you were playing vanilla BG.

 

Frankly, I don't think you would have enjoyed PoE using more spell casting enemies. With its soft-counter design, there is no effective means of defending against spells. Mitigate, perhaps, but not defend. An enemy part with a heavy spell casting component would probably steam roll most players, even with the nearly absent AI.

 

The combat in PoE isn't awful, but it's nothing compared to the IE games. The fluidity, back-and-forth counters, and dynamics are totally absent. Stealth, position, slaughter. For those of you who don't like to use stealth; position, attack, wait. Maybe toss in an occasional suppress affliction or consecrate. With the absence of hard counters, how engagement is handled, and the attack roll dynamics, most battles are very much the same. I am having a decent time thus far, but there is little variation, and it is quickly becoming clear to me how my first play through might be my only play through.

 

 

You surely must mean BG2, since BG1 didn't have any companion personality at all. Really.

 

I had four members get into frequent disagreements. Eventually one such argument came to an impasse, and they slaughtered each other (beyond my control). BG1 NPCs were far from devoid of character.

[Justin Bell]

I agree with everything Sensuki said about the game. I'm playing through it but feel it's not as good as the previous IE games. Combat is copy paste and if you send a tank up front and have a firing squad of 5 party members some distance away shooting everything, it's all very easy. So much so that I don't have my firing squad wear any armour. The A.I is exploitable even if you try not to exploit it. The A.I. is just plain dumb.

 

One of the things I do miss is the town/city life of the BG games, the banter and chatter, the hawkers trying to sell their wares, the voices that carry from out of nowhere that make the towns and cities feel alive. Just the hustle and bustle of life. This is missing in PoE. It's just music and rarely I hear someone speak. Most of town/city NPCs just stand there and pretty much do nothing. And most don't even walk or turn around when you click on them. And some areas of Defiance Bay feel deserted.

Hmmmm. You don't hear people talking in the background in Defiance Bay? You shouldn't be able understand them, but you should be able to hear what sounds like lots of people talking in a city...

 

If you turn the music off, is it silent? Maybe you've encountered a bug?

[Hiro Protagonist II]

I sometimes hear people but other times it's just music. I'll turn the music off and try it out.

[ddillon]

I can't think of any RPG that ever had half-decent AI myself. Certainly not the IE games where enemies almost always just mobbed the first thing they saw. Difficulty in RPGs single-player game has never, ever come from the AI anyway in my experience, unless it's a very tightly scripted boss battle. It's always hard by making the enemy bigger and badder than the player so they have a challenge to overcome.

 

Not really disagreeing with you, just pointing that out. Albeit I do think engagement is preferable to everyone running around willy-nilly like in Baldur's Gate, I love establishing a frontline.

DA:O. No, I'm not kidding. Its threat/aggro system might not be perfect, but it's a big step up from the IE games. Throw a fireball and a few enemies might break off that armored menace in front them to rush the mage. Or they might turn away from a fighter to smack down the rogue that's stabbing at their flanks. Don't see that kind of thing in the IE games or PoE.

[PrimeJunta]

One thing I'd like them to change with P:E has nothing to do with the mechanics and everything to do with monster stats: give some of them much stronger resistances to some things. As it is, blind/prone/paralyze + dd works against everything, and the effect of the debuff amounts to more or less the same thing (you get hit less, they get hit more). With varied (near) immunities on monsters we'd have to vary our tactics a good deal more.

 

Individual and in-combat stealth would also help by opening up a new set of tactical possibilities. And there are a bunch of other relatively minor adjustments that could also add a good deal of variety.

 

-- I just started a BG1 game again to get a better feel for how it compares to P:E by the way. And I really don't think BG1 is anything much to shout about; I've been doing select-all + auto-attack and facerolling pretty much everything, except some of the fights against casters where I drop a Web, Horror, Hold Person, Command, or some other spell in first. The really interesting combat only comes in BG2, and while P:E is way more fun than BG1, it's clear that it's not close to BG2 level.

 

@Sensuki I wish you'd stop saying that P:E's combat is "RTwP for people who don't like RTwP." You taught me to love RTwP (and I'm really digging BG2 now), but I still like P:E's combat also (and believe that its mechanics have enormous potential for fun which could be tapped simply by adjusting the numbers).