Josh re. engagement

[Guest 4ward]

 

i'd like to offer my pov on Josh's statement from another thread and i'll create a new thread since i don't want the other thread to be derailed.

 

'Engagement isn't primarily about forcing Disengagement Attacks, but holding (or at least slowing) enemies that may be attempting to rush around you.' - this is Josh's quote i'd like to reply to.

 

I know there's lots of people here who like this line of thinking and who like the melee system. I don't and yes there's the IE mod for people who want to play without the PoE melee system. But this game evolves around the designed melee system with all the talents that are tied to it and i believe also is related to enemy design in this game.

 

So, anyway, the thing is, enemies MAY or MAY NOT attempt to rush around you. There's different kinds of enemies, there's trash mobs, there's teleporting enemies, there's enemies with ranged weapons. Does it really make such a difference if trash mobs rush around you, are they such a threat? If they're made tough then probably yes, but that's not what this type of enemy is supposed to be, in BG2 e.g. they weren't. And i beleieve that Obs is shooting themselves a hole in the foot because if they design enemies that teleport or have ranged attacks, then don't they screw up the people who invested in building chars for engagement? Let's say you want to place a beholder from BG2 in PoE and he shoots his rays from afar, what good is it to have engagement talents? And if i have to move my chars around because an enemy teleported to the back of formation what good is my engagement built char now?

 

Enemies shouldn't behave all the same and that's what is also mentioned by Josh, but why then introduce a system and build on it which assumes that enemies do the same and lock you up with this from the 1st to the last fight in this game? If there's a sequel to PoE, please do give it a thought, that's all i ask.

[Flow]

[KDubya]

Currently enemies tend to bunch up on the frontline melee, who are the first thing they see. The ranged enemies tend to shoot at the first thing they see which is also the melee guys in front. The number of engagements don't really matter as no one is running past the rugby scrum, everyone just stay in a big ball. Meanwhile your casters in dresses can rain down AoE death safely from the back. Tank and spank, rinse and repeat.

 

The only dangerous enemies are the ones like shades who teleport past the rugby scrum and directly attack your soft targets. This is because all your offense comes from the glass cannons in the back while normally only your non-damaging meat sack tank is ever under attack. When your glass cannons get attacked they can be dropped quickly because they have no defense and dumped con to a 3 for more attack power.

 

If the new AI now attacks the front melee guys until their engagement slots are filled and then continue past to engage your back line casters that sounds like a good improvement. If ranged enemies choose to attack the lowest DR targets that would be even better. This would reward having more melee in order to establish a larger front, perhaps even require backline casters to care more about defenses such as constitution and DR from armor.

 

This would put the glass back into the glass cannon. I usually try and follow the rule of "Shoot the guy in a dress first", the enemy should do the same.