Hard Talk on Character Build Freedom, Attributes and Combat

[IndiraLightfoot]

I just read the following post by Stun:

From the Codex review:

Thus, when you inspect the attributes with this knowledge, it becomes very obvious what you can dump and not.

Is this nothing more than mad ranting? Or is it the friggin Truth?

Even before development of PoE began, Certain Developers from Obsidian were criticizing the attribute system in the IE games, accurately pointing out that those games had dump stats. They told us what we all already knew: that Every class can safely dump at least half of those stats without fear of crippling their builds. They Swore to fix this design flaw in PoE. They promised us No. More. Dump. Stats.

Fast forward to 2015. And what a surprise. A broken promise. There are indeed Dump stats in this game. The situation is no different than it was in the IE games. So why should PoE get a pass here? Why shouldn't we level the same criticism and scorn towards its attribute system?

 

 

And, having played PoE now for well over 100 hours, solely on Path of the Damned, and a lot of time invested in Triple Crown Solo, I reckon it's time for some hard talk on what works and do not work a far as PoE's character building freedom, attribute choices and varied solutions to combat/encounters go. 

 

There are number of issues to cover, and here are my views on them:

 

Movement during combat is severely restricted

 

I read this post two days ago:

archangel979, on 24 Apr 2015 - 4:30 PM, said:

 

View619, on 24 Apr 2015 - 4:14 PM, said:

Did anybody explain why the decision to prevent running from combat was included? Still feels like a heavy-handed way to force players to deal with a situation, and goes against the spirit of table-top/BG imo.

Probably has to do with developer time needed to implement it. Like most of the missing "basic" features that IE games had.

 

 

And then I pondered a bit over what I had just written about Tenuous Grasp for ciphers:

IndiraLightfoot, on 24 Apr 2015 - 4:11 PM, said:

Leon: I see where you are coming from, but I love that OP aspect of the cipher!

And its most important spell, which can be cast before combat - tenuous grasp - 10 Focus (cheap) - I would not have made it through triple crown solo without it, since I can control most encounters with it. I can chose to escape, I can break a flank if things go south, and I can even use it to lure off enemies one by one.

 

 

And I suddenly realized this: I most likely love this character because it's one of the very few builds that more or less can move rather freely in combat, from the very start of combat to the end, in short, it can ignore engagement pretty often.

Perhaps I'm not that fond of the engagement/disengagement mechanic, after all?

You learn something new every day.

 

I was actually a proponent for some kind of engagement mechanics during the beta, but perhaps not such a strong one as ended up in game, but now I'm not so very sure. it certainly needs a laxing overhaul. Although, I do love this more turn-based like style of combat (it reminds me of NWN2), I certainly can see the need for much more leniency when it comes to movement, especially in order to achieve build diversity.

 

Are there dump stats among the attributes? 

I have played most classes on Path of the Damned (and all of them at lower difficulty levels), and I'm not sure there are.

For instance, take CON. I built a tank druid as my main in my completionist playthrough, and I dumped it hard (3!), and it still works like a charm, since I only pick defensive items and talents etc for her. Well, she does complain about the need for sleep a lot.

However, my solo PoTD build had maxed out CON, and it was really, really useful. Less resting, better durability when taking damage, etc, etc.

I can honestly say that depending on your build, they all have their uses. Perception is perhaps the one I tend to dump a bit or more (unless building a tank).

However, I can also quite honestly say that I feel that attributes mean too little in PoE, and that statement leads me into the next topic...

 

Are items governing our build options too much? (On that darn Accuracy threshold)

One stat is very, very important in PoE: Accuracy. And you can't adjust it via your attributes at all (you could during the beta). Some classes have high accuracy and others low. So, class choice dictates your level of accuracy. Personally, I find that a bit boring and constrained.

However, it brings another problem: A few items, they can be enchanted or found, will increase your accuracy (a few spells will do that too). And all I can say is that such items make a lot of difference. It's almost as if they game has an Accuracy threshold, which we as players can't lower by any other means than items, spells and a certain type of talents: weapon foci, for instance adventurer or ruffian. And then you get +6 Accuracy on a weapon. That talent is so important that I've picked it for all my PotD-builds, and as soon as I have it bagged, the game gets easier. The same thing goes for weapons with Fine or better enchantments, they are the true level-uppers of the game. Monks using their fists, for instance, suffer hard from not being able to enchant them. And that locked in accuracy power beyond most of our grasp doesn't really sit perfectly with me, I'd rather leave some adjustment of Accuracy up to the players and their character builds (attributes) and choice of talents (we need more accuracy adjusting talents) to give us a better character build freedom. 

 

Are some item groups more important than others?

Yes.

Most gloves, helms and boots are not that important. Obviously, I have found a few that are very useful, but they are not necessary (disregarding some Mechanics enhancers etc). As for good armour, however, it is decently important, but not very game changing (except for a certain retaliation plate and a few lesser mails with cool abilities). Good weapons are very important, for instance see above. Rings and cloaks/necklaces are pretty glorious and very important, the same goes for a few belts. Finally, at Path of the damned, figurines rule! They are brilliant. The same goes for a few kinds of potions, scrolls and in fact beverages and dishes. 

 

Are there classes lacking in character build freedom?

Well, you can make a ranger tank or whatever tank vis-à-vis a ranged damage/AoE spell dealer, but that is almost the main pick for most classes. Personally, I reckon the cipher gives me the most freedom, and Druid coming in as a good second, with Chanter third perhaps. However, the ranger class is somehow wrong and almost not needed. Their pet is worst than any figurine, and if it dies, your ranger is gimped for the remainder of the fight. The ranger class needs some kind of reworking to feel more unique and interesting, and in a sense, I reckon the wizard needs a similar overhaul. Yes, in my party, Aloth was the big damage dealer via AoE, but there are plenty of spells you'd most likely never pick, and I'd like to build another kind of wizard, I even made another grimoire for it (for Aloth), but just swapping them was a hazzle, and it didn't work out.

 

On the viability of so-called glass cannons

When you do build a tank, and pile up all sorts of defences, they have the problem of often being locked out of dealing damage, and vice versa, build a high DPS'er with low defences, and you'll get hit and killed in no time. I reckon there needs to be a better middle-ground there, where we can make a plethora of builds that can survive a bit better with low defences, but still be fun, viable options that last longer than seconds. In another thread, we discussed that the game zeroes in on low defence character and tries to kill them, even at absurd cost to the assailants. Perhaps that code need to be toned down a notch or two?

 

My overall "fun" solution, when summarized, may sound weird, naïve and populistic, but I'd say:

-Raise the importance of attributes

-Relax the disengagement mechanic - let movement be more important - and this goes as options for most classes, not just one or two

-Let us adjust Accuracy more and in a lot of ways (obviously not over the top)

-Add more and varied talents for most classes (even replenishable resources for a few)

-Add more items for all classes, and both defensive and offensive ones

-Let tank builds builds have some DPS capabilities if built in a certain way

-Let glass cannon builds (and ranger pets ) be a bit more durable than they are now

 

So, now, bring on your own suggestions or simply opinions on what's working and what's not concerning this topic.

Edited April 26, 2015 by IndiraLightfoot

[View619]

I like the ideas behind the topic, I'll throw in my two cents just to add to this discussion:

 

1) Regarding Movement Restriction and Engagement

 

The penalties for disengaging need to be toned way down, maybe a normal accuracy strike with a chance at applying Hobbled so the melee character can stick once he's inside. Also, some type of modal ability (talent or otherwise) that allows you to slowly move during combat (think stealth movement) with no risk of triggering disengagement attacks, that way you can reposition without the possibility of running out of melee range at full speed like BG/IWD.

 

There are ways to discourage reckless movement without taking a cane whip to the player's backside every time he tries.

 

2) Regarding combat state 

 

I'm not sure if it's due to a challenge in development, but this is really causing a lot of problems imo. The inability to drink potions outside of combat, no pre-buffing (this isn't an issue without the ability to rest spam), the loss of buffs once combat ends leading to relatively useless wizard spells, inability to approach encounters in varied ways by opening with different tactics, etc. In practice, it's very restricting and adds very little to the game when you look at the big picture.

 

3) Regarding attributes and dump stats

 

Dumped stats need to have a greater penalties, possibly double the rate of loss for every attribute below 10? Every build will have stats you want to maximize, but I don't think it should be possible to dump without seeing a noticeable difference between characters. For example, a high deflection tank with dumped might should be the bitch in any encounter that involves a lot of fortitude-based attacks, while a more balanced tank would be more reliable. This may be due to poor encounter design more than anything else, though.

 

 

Class/talent balance is an issue that wouldn't be fully explored until the game released. Now that it's been a month, I expect some changes will be forthcoming.

 

Edit:

 

Fixed the line about movement.

Edited April 26, 2015 by View619

[gkathellar]

There are ways to discourage movement without taking a cane whip to the player's backside every time he tries.

 

I still don't understand why we want to discourage movement at all. I've been slowly replaying BGTutu over the past couple of weeks, and movement ends up being one of the more dynamic and interesting parts of combat (and the loss of movement or control of movement is a huge risk). Engagement strikes me as ever more pointless.

[b0rsuk]

There are items, chants and auras that help with disengagement. If disengagement is so important, why do you keep taking Reckless Assault in favor of Escape ? Why do you prefer Stunning Shots to Master's Call ? Finally, many times taking a disengagement hit is better than remaining there and being hit. You need to recognize such moments and pay the cost. I've been making this mistake in the past - not disengaging enough. Wolf companion and wolf spiritshift form get a bonus to disengagement too. Have you considered taking the disengagement talent ? Or "all generic talents are crap" ?

[Aotrs Commander]

I might have made stats not be quite a linear prodecure, if I really want to discourage people from dropping stats to 3 or something, and made the maluses proportionally increase the further below 10 you went.

 

Otherwise, I don't think there's any real way of obviating the fact that with any set of stats, there is going to be optimum stats and less-optimum stats for different classes and yu're going to get "dump" stats whatever, all you can do is change the value of "dump" from "ridiculously low" to "don't put any more than the points you start with in"; and if there was, the choice between stats would be less meaningful anyway.

[IndiraLightfoot]

b0rsuk: I reckon, we need more disengagement-dampening stuff available to pick, but I also think movement and the flow of combat needs to be a bit freer as well (I have no obvious solution yet). The game still has this "bunch of baddies bumrushing me, but I'm done for if I move"-grid over it. I'd like to make that sift more open, as it were.

[IndiraLightfoot]

 

 

2) Regarding combat state 

 

I'm not sure if it's due to a challenge in development, but this is really causing a lot of problems imo. The inability to drink potions outside of combat, no pre-buffing (this isn't an issue without the ability to rest spam), the loss of buffs once combat ends leading to relatively useless wizard spells, inability to approach encounters in varied ways by opening with different tactics, etc. In practice, it's very restricting and adds very little to the game when you look at the big picture.

 

 

Yeah. I was one among many that wanted an easier and more clearcut transition from no combat to combat, and also a clearer case as to what is allowed to be used/cast before or after that transition occurs.

Edited April 26, 2015 by IndiraLightfoot

[Mr. Magniloquent]

There are ways to discourage movement without taking a cane whip to the player's backside every time he tries.

 

I still don't understand why we want to discourage movement at all. I've been slowly replaying BGTutu over the past couple of weeks, and movement ends up being one of the more dynamic and interesting parts of combat (and the loss of movement or control of movement is a huge risk). Engagement strikes me as ever more pointless.

 

It has to do with two inter-related fears: kiting and autonomous characters.

 

Kiting is to Mr. Sawyer like fire is to Frankenstein. Bad. Avoid at all costs. Engagement probably the foremost among the major symptoms of this terror. There were some others that were toned down (enemy hyper movement speeds, movement recovery, etc), but engagement was never touched. It was inviolable despite its significant impact on gameplay and incredible opportunity for exploitation. Engagement is also supposed to function as an excuse for many class and feature designs. Anything that is not a designated tank shall not be able to do what a tank can do--even temporarily or through use of per-rest resources. No non-tank shall ever be able to possess high defenses. The End.

 

Mind you, the biggest problem with Engagement is its implementation. Let's go down the list:

• Instantaneous
• Free (No recovery)
• Guaranteed-to-interrupt
• Accuracy bonused
• Damage bonused
• Ignores weapon reach

That's not providing an obstacle to your back-row, that's punishing movement. That's what everyone has been complaining about since the beta began. It throws out all of the combat mechanics that are supposedly good, and does this. Frankly, the circumstances of a disengagement attack need to be exactly the opposite of what it currently bestows. Disengagement attacks need:

• Respect weapon speed
• Respect attack recovery
• Respect weapon reach
• Possess an accuracy penalty
• Remove any damage bonus

I do think the interrupt is important to have until non-tank defenses get fixed (if ever). I also think having engagement occur only when toggled (IE: Defender mode) would be best, as a player may sometimes wish their melee classes to be offensive.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Mr.Magniloquent: How eloquently you made your case with those lists! I certainly was a defender for the idea of engagement and disengagement, but having played the game so much now, I certainly see all the problems you mention. If I may, I could sum up all of your great lists in one sentiment: It sucks some of the fun out of making certain types of builds and doing combat in certain ways, and in my mind, this is a game that needs that to be ultra-fun, since it's made for replayability, or at least, to me.

[anameforobsidian]

Engagement:

I like it the way it is, but I think a shift/5 steps solution would be nice, especially as a trait.  Or, disengagement defenses could be a set of traits.  Then people could build characters to their gameplay style.  Also, a zone implementation rather than a move implementation would lead to more interesting combat if it could be implemented.

 

 

Frankly, the circumstances of a disengagement attack need to be exactly the opposite of what it currently bestows. Disengagement attacks need:

• Respect weapon speed
• Respect attack recovery
• Respect weapon reach
• Possess an accuracy penalty
• Remove any damage bonus

I do think the interrupt is important to have until non-tank defenses get fixed (if ever). I also think having engagement occur only when toggled (IE: Defender mode) would be best, as a player may sometimes wish their melee classes to be offensive.

 

Almost all of your suggested changes seem like basically soft ways to take engagement out of the game.

 

Let's go down the list:

1.  I don't understand how this would work.  Disengagement attacks only function as an interrupt.

2.  How would they do this and still have disengagement attacks?  Far more time is spent recovering than attacking, and the time not spent recovering is spent attacking.  It would it would mean the window to attack for disengaging would be so narrow as to be useless.

3.  Absolutely.  It would lead to greater verisimilitude.

4.  I disagree.  If you treat the system as an abstraction, when someone is trying to run away, either their defenses or movement should be lowered.  If it's not an abstraction, why should they have an accuracy penalty?  Enemies graze and miss enough as is.  At least it should have the same accuracy as a regular attack.

5.  Sure, why not.

 

As it stands, your suggestions would strongly encourage a high APM strategy where you run when your enemy starts the attack animation so that they get a weaker attack and go to cooldown, and then come back in to strike.  That's silly gameplay, even if it has a small set of proponents.

Edited April 26, 2015 by anameforobsidian

[gkathellar]

• Respect weapon reach

 

It used to. Then Sensuki demonstrated how you could break the game with pikes if it did.

 

Every time a debate involving, "do this with disengagement, that'll fix it," starts, and people go back and forth listing the million-and-one reasons why the other guy's fix won't work but their fix is fine, it only serves to reinforce the point: engagement is a bad system. Not a system that needs to be implemented differently or fixed - because that's been tried and tried and tried and tried - but a bad system.

 

(It doesn't help that kiting is still totally possible in game, and is arguably far worse than it ever was in BG.)

Edited April 26, 2015 by gkathellar

[b0rsuk]

 

There are ways to discourage movement without taking a cane whip to the player's backside every time he tries.

 

I still don't understand why we want to discourage movement at all. I've been slowly replaying BGTutu over the past couple of weeks, and movement ends up being one of the more dynamic and interesting parts of combat (and the loss of movement or control of movement is a huge risk). Engagement strikes me as ever more pointless.

 

 

First, it's not about discouraging movement, it's about discouraging certain kinds of movement. It's highly unrealistic* that you can just barge through enemy formation and maaybe take a single hit if you happen to run past a character having 0 recovery at the moment. It leads very simple combat like in Heroes of Might and Magic III and Baldur's Gate. If someone wants to attack your mage, your ranger or whatever, there's next to nothing you can do about it.

 

Zones of control lead to combat like in Age of Wonders III. Positioning and formations actually matter. Flanking is a powerful thing, it's like +2 damage to all lashes in that game.

 

------------------------

Also, regarding Josh Sawyer and any other designers - when out of arguments, resort to personal attacks. That will earn you reputation with the Dozens. I respect him more for trying something new. Design by committee absolutely sucks, and almost never producing great works. I'd rather play something that is not perfect but consistent in design than some generic and bland mass. http://blog.asmartbear.com/ignoring-the-wisdom-of-crowds.html When you start voting on design, you don't get something that people love. You get something everyone hates the least. Catering companies know this and serve stuff like plain chicken and rice. If nothing else, give the guy credit for taking responsibility for the system, which mostly works fine.

 

* realism and suspension of disbelief exists in fantasy. It's one of reasons Song of Ice and Fire is a very popular serries of books. It adds up and characters behave according to believable motivations.

[Ohioastro]

Kiting is nothing more than abusing limited AI. In my view you might as well use console commands, and more to the point the designer hates it. So any engagement solution that might actually happen has to not feature kiting.

 

Games where everyone has to stand up to melee attacks are games where all of the classes end up being almost the same.

[scrotiemcb]

Engagement: I mostly agree with anameforobsidian. I think the core of engagement is a good mechanic, but Obsidian has boosted it a bit too much.

 

In particular, I feel engagement should be damage OR interruption, not damage AND interruption. By this I mean that being amazing at both would be quite rare, and generally characters (both player and computer) would specialize in one or the other, or just be average at both. If interrupt truly is automatic, that is probably the one thing which most needs to change. Furthermore, disengagement attacks shouldn't receive natural bonuses to damage or Interrupt at all. There SHOULD be a Talent to increase disengagement damage significantly (perhaps to more than it is now), and a Talent to increase disengagement Interrupt significantly (but still not auto-success), but without specialization both damage and interrupt should have no bonuses.

 

Disengagement Accuracy, however, should have a bonus. That probably shouldn't change. Rarely should a character break engagement with no penalty at all.

 

As far as disengagement radius goes, I don't think they should be (much) smaller, I think they shouldn't trigger unless you try to leave that radius. This would allow for a "5 foot step" mechanic the game desperately needs.

 

Attributes:

 

I don't feel this is rocket science.

 

There are about 5 things characters care about offensively:

1. Damage per action

2. Actions per second

3. Area of effect

4. Duration

5. Initial positioning (ex: +Range for a ranged character, Stealth for a melee character)

 

So you put those 5 things on 5 different attributes, no doubling up.

 

There are about 6 things characters care about defensively:

1. Deflection

2. rate of incoming healing (could be stat on another character)

3. Health (not so much with Endurance)

4. Fortitude

5. Reflex

6. Will

 

You put these things on 6 different attributes, no doubling up.

 

The main reason PoE has dump stats is because the system doubles up. Any of the four Defenses have two sources rather than one exclusive source, allowing dump stats in tanks. Intelligence pounds both Duration AND Area of Effect, when one of those could have gone elsewhere to make a dump stat more desirable.

[View619]

The main reason PoE has dump stats is because the system doubles up. Any of the four Defenses have two sources rather than one exclusive source, allowing dump stats in tanks. Intelligence pounds both Duration AND Area of Effect, when one of those could have gone elsewhere to make a dump stat more desirable.

 

Full agreement, it feels like the system in place is designed to prevent hard, meaningful choices. Do I go all in with Deflection at the expense of Will\Reflex or do I select a more balanced initial spread and supplement it through the use of defensive talents? Well, I don't need to worry about it since I can improve all of those defenses through two attributes!

 

Do I want a front-line melee character who focuses more on dealing damage (Might) or is about holding his ground with higher fortitude (Constitution)? Great, I don't need to choose there either!

Edited April 26, 2015 by View619

[b0rsuk]

"5 ft rule" - walking within certain radius of an enemy without suffering attack of opportunity - could be a class power. For example automatically learned by rogues at level1. Or it could be a property showing up on armors, shields, rapiers...

[IndiraLightfoot]

scrotiemcb: Great post. I'd really like to keep engagement, disengagement and flanking in the game as well - and your proposed solutions are a nice step in the right direction. I'd really love to see polearms and such get more oomph out of them as well.

[IndiraLightfoot]

"5 ft rule" - walking within certain radius of an enemy without suffering attack of opportunity - could be a class power. For example automatically learned by rogues at level1. Or it could be a property showing up on armors, shields, rapiers...

Yeah, or at least turning hits into grazes and crits into hits.

[View619]

You could make "5 Foot Rule" a class talent that you can select at level 1 and on-wards for specific classes; Fighter, Barbarian, Rogue, Ranger, Paladin, Chanter, Monk. It could be assumed that some level of martial training is required to maintain a defensive posture while moving in battle. I would go for a modal with reduced movement here and eliminate the possibility of eating disengagement attacks, maybe even a nice animation of the unit walking backwards while it's active. This would prevent any potential issues due to AI path-finding as well, where the unit just decides to break the safety zone on a whim.

 

For the other classes, just implement more general talents for improving defense vs disengagement attacks. This way if you wanted to build something like a hit and run Rogue who never stays still long enough to fully engage, the "5 Foot Rule" wouldn't completely invalidate the other talents.

Edited April 26, 2015 by View619

[the streaker]

Maybe I missed it in this thread, but why is engagement considered an objectively bad concept by so many people here?

 

Maybe you'd prefer not to have it as a design choice, but that's just how the game plays. Kite before someone engages you, and give your front line characters +disengagement defense items/traits/spells if you want them to do so. It makes total sense that if a person is facing three enemies in melee, trying to turn and run would get him creamed. Isn't that how the majority of casualties in ancient warfare were inflicted?

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Engagement:

I like it the way it is, but I think a shift/5 steps solution would be nice, especially as a trait.  Or, disengagement defenses could be a set of traits.  Then people could build characters to their gameplay style.  Also, a zone implementation rather than a move implementation would lead to more interesting combat if it could be implemented.

 

 

 

Frankly, the circumstances of a disengagement attack need to be exactly the opposite of what it currently bestows. Disengagement attacks need:

• Respect weapon speed
• Respect attack recovery
• Respect weapon reach
• Possess an accuracy penalty
• Remove any damage bonus

I do think the interrupt is important to have until non-tank defenses get fixed (if ever). I also think having engagement occur only when toggled (IE: Defender mode) would be best, as a player may sometimes wish their melee classes to be offensive.

 

 

Almost all of your suggested changes seem like basically soft ways to take engagement out of the game.

 

 

Let's go down the list:

1.  I don't understand how this would work.  Disengagement attacks only function as an interrupt.

2.  How would they do this and still have disengagement attacks?  Far more time is spent recovering than attacking, and the time not spent recovering is spent attacking.  It would it would mean the window to attack for disengaging would be so narrow as to be useless.

3.  Absolutely.  It would lead to greater verisimilitude.

4.  I disagree.  If you treat the system as an abstraction, when someone is trying to run away, either their defenses or movement should be lowered.  If it's not an abstraction, why should they have an accuracy penalty?  Enemies graze and miss enough as is.  At least it should have the same accuracy as a regular attack.

5.  Sure, why not.

 

 

As it stands, your suggestions would strongly encourage a high APM strategy where you run when your enemy starts the attack animation so that they get a weaker attack and go to cooldown, and then come back in to strike.  That's silly gameplay, even if it has a small set of proponents.

You raise many good points. It is more or less a soft way of removing engagement. Essentially all that would be left would be the interruption/blocking aspect of it. I suggested that engagement be modal, due to the likelyhood of it locking down a character due to respecting recovery.

 

 

• Respect weapon reach

 

It used to. Then Sensuki demonstrated how you could break the game with pikes if it did.

 

It doesn't, and never did. I was a major participant to that lengthy argument. In the video, I didn't think it was egregious because he was using pikes. I took it as a good example of skirmish tactics. Sensuki then made a video doing the same thing with daggers at the same ranges. It was illustrative.

 

Every time a debate involving, "do this with disengagement, that'll fix it," starts, and people go back and forth listing the million-and-one reasons why the other guy's fix won't work but their fix is fine, it only serves to reinforce the point: engagement is a bad system. Not a system that needs to be implemented differently or fixed - because that's been tried and tried and tried and tried - but a bad system.

 

(It doesn't help that kiting is still totally possible in game, and is arguably far worse than it ever was in BG.)

 

Agreed. It does cause far more problems than it resolves. Many of the "problems" it solves only exist because of certain design choices anyway (soft-counters, very narrow class roles, etc). Engagement proved to be inviolable throughout the beta, and is highly unlikely to change now. Tweaking it to do the least amount of harm is all that may be done, so people try.

 

Zones of control lead to combat like in Age of Wonders III. Positioning and formations actually matter. Flanking is a powerful thing, it's like +2 damage to all lashes in that game.

 

Positioning like this works well in a turn based game. Implementing a 5-foot step like many have suggested or creating a slew of feats to circumvent engagement are neither practical from a development nor real-time game play stand point. If you have to restructure your game to accommodate a very questionable feature that has many serious and negative aspects on game play, then it should probably not be in the game.

[b0rsuk]

Zones of control lead to combat like in Age of Wonders III. Positioning and formations actually matter. Flanking is a powerful thing, it's like +2 damage to all lashes in that game.

 

Positioning like this works well in a turn based game. Implementing a 5-foot step like many have suggested or creating a slew of feats to circumvent engagement are neither practical from a development nor real-time game play stand point. If you have to restructure your game to accommodate a very questionable feature that has many serious and negative aspects on game play, then it should probably not be in the game.

 

 

I enjoy engagement in this real-time game. One of reasons is I haven't played a real-time game with engagement before. I guess there was Neverwinter Nights, but it was marginal in there. Here, it matters. And really, there are many effects in the game that deal with engagement. Every class have some. Knockback is one of them.

 

 

Maybe I missed it in this thread, but why is engagement considered an objectively bad concept by so many people here?

 

Maybe you'd prefer not to have it as a design choice, but that's just how the game plays. Kite before someone engages you, and give your front line characters +disengagement defense items/traits/spells if you want them to do so. It makes total sense that if a person is facing three enemies in melee, trying to turn and run would get him creamed. Isn't that how the majority of casualties in ancient warfare were inflicted?

 

Because some people would genuinely prefer to play Pillars of Eternity on Infinity Engine with D&D ruleset. You can't teach an old dog new tricks. Inability to adapt.

 

Leonidas, a king of Spartans, died with a javelin in his back.

 

---------------

 

I've been thinking about scrotiemcb's idea that Constitution should affect effect duration, not Intelligence. It makes sense in a way, or - at least - not less sense than Might affecting power of spells. Intelligence really is a bit overloaded as a stat, and Constitution not desirable enough. This change would allow Paladins to focus on Might and Con and have good Lay on Hands. Intelligence for bigger aura. Wizards focusing on debuffs would get Might and Con, and could dump Int. Blasters would want Might and Int, but Con not so much.

My worry is, many classes could afford to dump Int: rangers have no areas, just like rogues. Paladin really could get away with normal int. Monk - what do they need area for, again ? Rooting Pain ? Not sure if a single skill is worth it. But it would probably still be better than now.

Edited April 26, 2015 by b0rsuk

[perilisk]

 

There are ways to discourage movement without taking a cane whip to the player's backside every time he tries.

 

I still don't understand why we want to discourage movement at all. I've been slowly replaying BGTutu over the past couple of weeks, and movement ends up being one of the more dynamic and interesting parts of combat (and the loss of movement or control of movement is a huge risk). Engagement strikes me as ever more pointless.

 

 

I doubt the philosophy is "movement is bad" so much as "adding the ability to control and restrict enemy movement and positioning makes for more interesting tactics". It just maybe isn't implemented so well.

 

[Xosmi]

 

 

There are ways to discourage movement without taking a cane whip to the player's backside every time he tries.

 

I still don't understand why we want to discourage movement at all. I've been slowly replaying BGTutu over the past couple of weeks, and movement ends up being one of the more dynamic and interesting parts of combat (and the loss of movement or control of movement is a huge risk). Engagement strikes me as ever more pointless.

 

 

I doubt the philosophy is "movement is bad" so much as "adding the ability to control and restrict enemy movement and positioning makes for more interesting tactics". It just maybe isn't implemented so well.

 

 

 

Sure, the way engagement is currently implemented pretty much means "movement is bad" though.

But, I can simply send in my main tank into battle first, and the AI will auto target and engage just him, circumventing the entire problem. It works, but i hardly imagine that's something that was intended.

Currently, i'm using the IEmod to completely disable engagement,  and i feel the playthrough has become a lot more fun since then. 

[scrotiemcb]

More on Attributes:

I've made this post before in other threads and received almost entirely negative response. Expecting a different outcome is probably insane. But I really do feel strongly about this.

 

To recap, squishies (max offense, min defense builds) care primarily about roughly 4 things:

1. Damage per action

2. Actions per second

3. Area of effect

4. Duration

(and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know 1 & 2 are the most important, because they are independent of the character's limited-use abilities.)

Tanks, on the other hand, care primarily about 6 things:

1. Rate of incoming healing

2. Deflection

3. Health

4/5/6. Fort/Ref/Will

(and the first 2 are most important for tanking the vast majority of damage in the game.)

 

I didn't include max Endurance under tanking because it's rarely an issue. As long as heals match incoming damage, Health is more of a limiter than Endurance.

 

Squishies are the harder problem, but doing the tank split is easy...

MIG: Fortitude

CON: Health

DEX: Reflex

PER: Deflection

INT: Will

RES: Healing

 

Doesn't really make sense that Intelligence would increase a defense called Will, but resolve wouldn't. So let's rename the defense without really changing it.

INT: Logic

 

From here, we begin matching squishy stuff with tanky stuff.

 

First, the two weakest defenses get the top two squishy priorities...

MIG: Damage, Fortitude

DEX: Action Speed, Reflex

 

Then the 3rd weakest defense gets the 3rd strongest squishy priority...

INT: Area of Effect, Logic

 

The 3rd strongest tank attribute gets the 4th strongest squishy priority...

CON: Duration, Health

Admittedly, this one is a little weird. So let's rename Constitution to something which better fits the twin concepts of Duration and Health: Vigor (VIG).

 

Lastly, as it's clear that Healing can be good for certain squishies, providing heal support from squishy to frontliners, it deserves the weakest squishy benefit. I believe the logical choice here is insurance against getting trapped in engagement, both in terms of damage and interrupt.

RES: Healing, Endurance, Concentration

 

This wraps us up with...

MIGHT: Damage, Fortitude

VIGOR: Duration, Health

DEXTERITY: Action Speed, Reflex

PERCEPTION: (TBD squishy benefit), Deflection

INTELLIGENCE: Area of Effect, Logic

RESOLVE: Healing, Endurance, Concentration

I feel pretty good about the above.

 

The portion I haven't been able to solve to my complete satisfaction is what to add to Perception to prevent it from being a total dump stat for squishies. The best I've been able to come up with is a pair of bonuses: increased Range for ranged attacks, and Stealth for melee attacks. This would mean Stealth wouldn't be a skill anymore, though, so yet another system would require revision.

 

Anyone have any better ideas?

Edited April 26, 2015 by scrotiemcb