Simple Fix for Many of the Game's Combat/Balance Problems

[Climhazzard]

So, don't tanks without might have low fortitude scores?  Meaning a 3 might tank would be quite vulnerable to prone attacks?  And by extension, losing all aggro once prone? 

 

Anyways, I like the idea of the AI making occasional risk/reward assessments to disengage from the tank, the result being a bit less min/maxing.  Sure you could just equip greatswords or something instead, but then your tank will be far less tanky and his enemies less likely to disengage from him (more likely to overwhelm him).  Properly balanced it should discourage 3 might tanks with no accuracy wielding hatchets, without overall discouraging the use of tanks.  They would just have to balance their offense and defense.  Suddenly those weapon mastery talents look pretty tantalizing, and Eder on your frontline wielding the resolution Saber is suddenly looking a lot better than before, he would do enough damage with his disengagement attacks that enemies would not try to disengage to often, yet still be tanky enough that you want him there.  You'd also probably want more than one, instead of one tank and 5 squishies, you start running 2 or 3 melee of varying ability to hold enemies, 2 or 3 squishies, and 1 or 2 backliners who can hold their own when necessary.

[Jojobobo]

More intelligent disengagement from tanks would be good (I have seen enemies ocasionally disengage, but it's not often), however on the other hand no one asked the OP to min-max like that or to even run a fighter - the latter definitely making things more interesting. I'm currently soloing on PotD and I'm finding the combat perfectly fine.

[b0rsuk]

I feel like you're trying to support your own point by saying that anyone who doesn't isn't sufficiently HARDCORE PC GAMER, but my objection really has nothing to do with that. What you are proposing would make the game aesthetically displeasing, on account of things like the playing chicken and the naked frontliners and the armored squishies. If your response to that is "turn down the difficulty, nub," then that mostly sounds like an admission that those things are exactly what would happen. And the game where those things are exactly what would happen is not a game I want to play - or, frankly, a game that would bear much resemblance to the IE games that PoE is supposed to resemble.

 

Yes, and that would be good ! It would force players to use under-utilized parts of the game. To pay price for (literally) min-maxing. I don't have problems with switching to shields, repositioning or casting defensive spells. I fondly remember a battle which was won with only Aloth and Ituumak standing. He'd never accomplish that without Arcane Veil, Corrosive Siphon and Weapon Focus: Noble.

 

The game is prepared to take it. It has an arsenal of defensive tricks.

 

 

Game AI really should not be in the business of dictating playstyle, and that's what the thing you're describing would do. But hey, at least we wouldn't have dedicated tanks anymore, right?

Really ? Is not AI your opponent ? So what are they, just "mobs", then ?

 

 

No plan survives contact with the enemy.

-- Helmuth von Moltke, Prussian field marshal.

You could at least show enough respect to react to your foe's actions. I strongly disagree with you. I think AI behavior dictating what a good tactic is is the goal.

 

Also, if opponents were smarter, there could be less of them on Hard, or PotD enemies wouldn't need such inflated stats. Would you rather fight a smarter opponent on Hard, or a bigger pile of bricks ?

Edited April 21, 2015 by b0rsuk

[ResJudicator]

More intelligent disengagement from tanks would be good (I have seen enemies ocasionally disengage, but it's not often), however on the other hand no one asked the OP to min-max like that or to even run a fighter - the latter definitely making things more interesting. I'm currently soloing on PotD and I'm finding the combat perfectly fine.

 

I think you misread my post.  I didn't say I was min-maxing, only that this proposal would address several issues, including min-maxing.  And of course combat feels fine if you're soloing -- at that point the enemy AI doesn't have to make any decisions about who to attack.  Of course, soloing is a pretty simple matter that just involves exploiting the AI in other ways that are beyond the scope of this thread.

 

 

Anyways, I like the idea of the AI making occasional risk/reward assessments to disengage from the tank, the result being a bit less min/maxing.  Sure you could just equip greatswords or something instead, but then your tank will be far less tanky and his enemies less likely to disengage from him (more likely to overwhelm him).  Properly balanced it should discourage 3 might tanks with no accuracy wielding hatchets, without overall discouraging the use of tanks.  They would just have to balance their offense and defense.  Suddenly those weapon mastery talents look pretty tantalizing, and Eder on your frontline wielding the resolution Saber is suddenly looking a lot better than before, he would do enough damage with his disengagement attacks that enemies would not try to disengage to often, yet still be tanky enough that you want him there.  You'd also probably want more than one, instead of one tank and 5 squishies, you start running 2 or 3 melee of varying ability to hold enemies, 2 or 3 squishies, and 1 or 2 backliners who can hold their own when necessary.

 

Pretty much this.

[View619]

I think the current implementation is good for a part 1 (introduction to the system, etc) but the xpac and PoE2 should have more clever AI.

 

For the xpac and part 2, AI should be varied. Some should be smart enough to either break engagement (or even eat the engagement attack) and go for the squishies. Not all should be clever enough to do this though. There should always be room in encounter design for the dumb ass enemy. The key is to keep enemy AI varied so that would additional elements to the encounter design. Some of this is already in there (fampyrs seem to bum rush the squishies) but the key is both to add more in the xpac and also add in better enemy disengagement tactics while also keeping in some stupid enemies as well. 

 

Also, I cant help but wonder why more people dont wonder at the real issue with PoE combat at present: the over abundance of xp which allows for leveling and the low difficulty tuning of the critical path (enemy resistances, etc).

 

Have you tried the latest IE mod? It has an option to increase xp requirements by 50% per level. 

[Sanctuary]

So you basically want every encounter to work how encounters with Phantoms/Shades work?  Then there would be absolutely NO reason to not have your casters wearing plate 100% of the time, because shades will teleport on top of them every single time, trying to take out the back row from the start.

[Archaven]

Kind of sad.. this game is really awesome but the combat is too easy. I wished Obsidian can do something about it but i don't think a simple patch can fix 90% of the combat in this game.

[Abel]

I haven't read all. But i'm not agree with the OP.

 

It's true that i play a sub optimal charater in difficult mode (a tank priestess). But so far; i feel the AI is pretty smart. When i manage to engage ennemies with my 3 tanks (Eder, Pallegina and my priestess), very often, the AI will disengage, using before many engagement breaking abilities (like escape or with effects such as prone) to circle my front line, flank my characters and nuke my backline. While i manage to engage all the ennemies i can with my tanks as soon as i can, i generally end up with Aloth dead, because foes use all the abilities they can to disengage freely from my frontline. It makes spells like paralyse, effects like AoE prone, hobble and so on very, very, very usefull. As for grimoire slam which helps Aloth to disengage freely quite often.

[ResJudicator]

So you basically want every encounter to work how encounters with Phantoms/Shades work?  Then there would be absolutely NO reason to not have your casters wearing plate 100% of the time, because shades will teleport on top of them every single time, trying to take out the back row from the start.

 

Not at all.

 

Phantoms/shades IGNORE engagement.  I'm not asking for other enemies to do this.  I'm simply asking for enemies to at some point consider whether to disengage -- and eat the disengagement attack -- in order to attack a squishier target.  There is no sensible reason why "intelligent" enemies should all clump around a single tank that is doing absolutely no damage, and ignore the super-squishy backline that is presenting all of the threat.  Would you have your party beat on a pile of bricks while the enemy rogue sneak attacks you from 5 feet away?  Obviously not.  So why should the AI do just that?

 

The main issue many people have against this suggestion is really just that it would make the game harder.  It seems to me that we could easily reach a compromise where you either add in a "smarter AI" toggle option, or make it so that the AI behaves intelligently only at higher difficulty levels.

[durbal]

I suggested the same thing as the OP in a different thread.  It would really improve combat and character build diversity a lot.

 

Some people are just going to simultaneously complain about combat being static and hurting their min-maxed build.  It makes no sense, so it's best to ignore them.  They should just come out and say 'I like having naked wizards and gunners and don't want to think or ever lose', because pretending that they believe otherwise is just disingenuous.

[b0rsuk]

The main issue many people have against this suggestion is really just that it would make the game harder.  It seems to me that we could easily reach a compromise where you either add in a "smarter AI" toggle option, or make it so that the AI behaves intelligently only at higher difficulty levels.

 

 

It could even be implemented separately from difficulty levels (see Expert Mode and Trials of Iron).

[Osvir]

There is a problem with your idea: Engagement itself. Once any enemy gets a mage or squishy character into Engagement they are basically screwed. A mage eating disengagement is usually death or close to it, which results in chaotic battles which results in lots of resting to be done, and we only have 4 camping supplies per area (2 on hard?)

 

The whole system would need to change if the enemy AI actually used real tactics and attacked our back row. It would be utter chaos.

 

The entire problem with this battle system is engagement, it's a hot debate right now. Personally I dislike it greatly, it encourages tank and spank, precisely what you described, however if the enemy suddenly started following a new set of rules, no fight would be winnable. 

 

The battle system itself is already chaotic enough with too much pausing, imagine how bad it would be if you had to manage kiting with all 6 characters and dealing with engagement beyond your tank. God that would be terrible, I wouldn't even play the game. 

 

IE games did it better, because you didn't get sucked into this "glue" effect of engagement.

 

Luckily for the poor mage, his friends may come to his aid! I've used Knockdown (w/ Fighter) several times and then re-positioned my Wizard. Or other abilities, buffs or Class specifics to strengthen the Wizard so that he can move away (Or getting my Chanter in a more favorable position, or my Priest etc.). Push-backs, Grimoire Slam and so on.

 

Did what I felt was epic, and that was a Grimoire Slam on a Spectre in Caed Nua, into the Pushback Invocation from Kana Rua. That felt extremely satisfying :D

 

Because there's TONS of abilities, spells and talents that your adventuring party can use to aid anyone stuck in a bad position.

 

Here's a little list I compiled some time ago of abilities you can use if you get in a bad position:

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/71271-slowed-recovery-while-moving-no-thanks/?p=1588520

 

(You won't have to Rest as often if you take care of your units and make sure that they have proper gear and do their jobs)

 

EDIT: But! I also think that the AI could be more interesting, and I've said it before... how would you act if you were a band of bandits attacking an adventuring party? How would you act if you were a group of ghosts, spectre's and floating wisps? The AI in Pillars of Eternity feels quite "robotic", in that it is predictable. Most enemies act the same, eventually, even though some pose a different type of challenge.

 

I still think Running is the bad guy, and I don't know whether I should repeat my sentiment or look for the post and just copy+paste it.

 

Gah!

 

Well, it only took a minute

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/72327-walking-toggle-please/?p=1621437

 

And an elaboration:

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/72327-walking-toggle-please/page-5?do=findComment&comment=1622154

 

Simplified, and in summary: There's just so much more that the AI could react to, and move to, if there'd been a different "movement" mechanic in combat/engagement.

Edited April 21, 2015 by Osvir

[Wiggum Esquilax]

As a counter to improved A.I, what about increasing the dimensions of sprites in relation to the enemy, and only the enemy, forcing them to spend more time going around?  The severe danger to rear area dps builds is due to how damn fast melee combat occurs in this game, this would provide an effective hard counter.

 

If you think that this would only exacerbate the power of tanks in doorways, I offer that the A.I. has to learn when to hold their ground and snipe someone who's alone and hanging back.

[b0rsuk]

Also, for the lazy, there are races like Pale Elf. 10 Fire and Frost Damage Reduction !! What are shades supposed to do with you, even if they reach you ?

[b0rsuk]

News flash: apparently wizards work very well in melee (spellswords), and that doesn't take many talents to make a hybrid. So much for squishies. I think priest is the squishiest class in the game.

 

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/78398-completed-the-game-as-a-spellsword-just-sharing-the-experience-and-what-i-learnt/

[MadDemiurg]

Honestly, any class can be made to tank sufficiently well. And if you run multiple nukers you don't even need to tank that much - it takes 1-2 rounds to blow everything up.