Taunts are needed

[LaSpeakeasi]

 

That would be the worst way to implement taunts. Even the D&D 3.5 Barbarian taunt is better than that. We absolutely don't need MMO style tank-and-spank.

 

The backline targeting mobs in WM is good because it forces you to come up with new strategy instead of the tried-and-true bottlenecking that is pretty much without fail in the vanilla campaign. It forces you to look for the sparsely occurring bottlenecks in an expansive maps, and utilizes scouting and traps to direct the flows of enemies. It gives you the feeling of a hunting party, a welcome change from the claustrophobic Od Nua.

 

I'm down for 3.5-style barbarian taunts - 1-2 per encounter, single target, only used to debuff enemy or save a dying backline member. MMO style taunts would be soooo boring.

Ive also read that WM mooks have an ability to vault over a frontliner, knock them prone, and land near a backliner for facemelting. So I'm curious about something. Lets say your in a bottleneck and you have your tank up front, maybe the offtank behind them, then the rest all in a line down a hallway. Can the mook vault all of your party members at the same time, knocking them all prone on the way to the backliner? Or can they only vault one party member at a time?

 

Do you mean Flagellant's Path? It has a range of only 2m, and I don't recall Zahua knocking anyone prone or my guys being knocked prone by it.

 

The rogue also has a similar abilty that let's you trick-switch position with an enemy, potentially landing in the face of your backliner.

 

That's why traps are useful. And the more you bottleneck the more you should use them.

[KDubya]

 

 

That would be the worst way to implement taunts. Even the D&D 3.5 Barbarian taunt is better than that. We absolutely don't need MMO style tank-and-spank.

 

The backline targeting mobs in WM is good because it forces you to come up with new strategy instead of the tried-and-true bottlenecking that is pretty much without fail in the vanilla campaign. It forces you to look for the sparsely occurring bottlenecks in an expansive maps, and utilizes scouting and traps to direct the flows of enemies. It gives you the feeling of a hunting party, a welcome change from the claustrophobic Od Nua.

 

I'm down for 3.5-style barbarian taunts - 1-2 per encounter, single target, only used to debuff enemy or save a dying backline member. MMO style taunts would be soooo boring.

Ive also read that WM mooks have an ability to vault over a frontliner, knock them prone, and land near a backliner for facemelting. So I'm curious about something. Lets say your in a bottleneck and you have your tank up front, maybe the offtank behind them, then the rest all in a line down a hallway. Can the mook vault all of your party members at the same time, knocking them all prone on the way to the backliner? Or can they only vault one party member at a time?

 

Do you mean Flagellant's Path? It has a range of only 2m, and I don't recall Zahua knocking anyone prone or my guys being knocked prone by it.

 

The rogue also has a similar abilty that let's you trick-switch position with an enemy, potentially landing in the face of your backliner.

 

That's why traps are useful. And the more you bottleneck the more you should use them.

 

I think he is talking about the barbarians using Dragon Leap.

 

Flagellant's Path has a 10 meter range hitting and de-buffing defenses of everything in the way.

[pi2repsion]

Do you mean Flagellant's Path? It has a range of only 2m, and I don't recall Zahua knocking anyone prone or my guys being knocked prone by it.

What Gfted1 had heard seems to be a combination of abilities of some of the new enemies. Specifically, the leaping part has got to refer to the enemy-only ability that is logged as "Dragon Leap", where the enemy leaps into the air a quite considerable distance and lands, dealing minor AOE damage and dazing.

 

...mmm. We probably shouldn't go into more detail about the abilities of enemies or specific enemies here in the General Discussion forum, as it would be hard to do so without violating the no spoiler rules (if we haven't already done so, come to think of it), but it has got to be that leap.

[avari3]

Engagement >>>>>>>>>>>>Aggro.

 

Good god I hate the aggro mechanic.

[oaktownbrown]

 

I also hear this argument that they should just have better AI.

Well with better AI as in real world AI.  Here is how it would go likely.

The battle would consist of killing the mage/priest then rogue.  Then you split between ranged and melee and we would be done.

The enemies would calculate resistances and defense based on visibility and make decisions appropriately based on these calculations.

What this would entail unless you use choke hold yawn fests is that every character would be armored and have to be taking tanking/defensive melee skills.

I don't know about you but a full party in plate armor ends up being pretty boring.  Not to mention a rogue in plate or a mage in plate makes no sense.  Neither have the might/strength to put this **** on and even move in it properly.

 

As stated the only real strat as of now is choke points where you can force enemies to dance in the back trying to get to you as you pick them off one by one.

So realistic there right...

 

 

 

I would like an AI like you describe. I don't think we will get anything close to it but I'd prefer better AI to taunts.

 

I don't understand why good AI would require every party member to take defensive talents. I've soloed (pre-2.0) with a wizard and a druid and didn't take any defensive talents, tanking talents, or melee talents. I'd guess that they'd be less necessary with a party than when soloing, even with good AI.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by "armor". I think you're probably right if you mean some type of armor and wrong if you mean heavy armor. I think it would be a good thing if backrow characters needed to wear some armor, though, so I'd count that as an advantage, not a disadvantage. When I soloed as a caster, I wore armor (hide armor most of the time IIRC bc it usually seemed like the best balance between protection and offense for my playstyle). I wear at least robes in my party play bc it's pretty cheesy to have most of your party wear clothing IMO, though I played around with that for a bit and understand why people would choose to do that all the time. I agree with KDubya who said that there needs to be more trade-offs for the various types of armor.

 

I agree with those who said that there are many other tactics than chokepoints. I understand why people use them: they're easy, they're effective, and they take advantage of dumb AI, which, ultimately, all of us who play single player games do in pretty much every battle. But, for me, they usually aren't fun so I try not to use them. I'd usually rather figure out another way to win bc that's more fun for me.

 

I don't want taunts bc they're asymmetrical and give the player an advantage against an AI that already has too few advantages IMO. Maybe if the AI were a lot better, I'd want them in the game.

Edited September 29, 2015 by oaktownbrown

[sapientNode]

It would be fantastic if there was better AI.  Since taunts given the current AI would likely just be engagement to a greater degree I do not understand the issue.

I am not talking about spamming a yell button and all enemies run at the guy.  I am talking about mechanics like the pull that already exists and perhaps some other additional engagement slots for tanks.

 

I do not use choke holds to cheese the game.  I just get tired of my rogue going stutter stutter stutter stuck on some invisible collision and then run a lap around the entire group of enemies getting engaged by everything to finally end up 5 meters from where she began so she can backstab.

If I put my guys all in a basic clump fest on PoTD they just run randomly when trying to get positioned and basically grab extra aggro which they shouldnt because they are chugging stuttering around trying to path find to their locations.

Choke holds or at least pulling enemies through a smaller opening is a sure fire way i can position myself without running into the issue that the location my guy was running to is now occupied so my squishy may decide they will now run a lap around the entire perimeter of enemies pissing them all off until that location is now empty again.

 

I know good AI is incredibly difficult to pull off in games because teaching a AI potentially could take a very long time to really refine.  So what we have is a situation where we make do and added taunts is not hurting anything.

 

As I stated already face smashing the AI so it locks on to the nearest target is just a sloppy version of what I am saying.  Whether that is choke holds or in an open area I think everyone uses there most resilient character as the meat shield while archer rogue caster launch their attacks.  Even in high DR armor the base mechanics of a mage is not set to being pounded on.

 

Of course once we have iemod with the ability modding we can do what we please to the skills and wont even need to have discussions which end up devolving into arguments about how adding things will absolutely break the game.  I am really looking forward to when the game is patched solid and those capabilities are made available more fluently through iemod.

[oaktownbrown]

The issue for me is that taunts would be asymmetrical. You could give enemies that ability but I am very skeptical that they'd use it well. If the devs actually implemented enemy AI that used taunts intelligently, I think taunts would be probably be fine and might make combat more interesting and tactical. E.g., your tank, who was previously engaging a few enemies, would get pulled away and you'd need to figure out how to deal with that. Or your wizard, who was positioning to cast an AoE, suddenly finds him or herself standing in front of an ogre. That could be fun.

 

"As I stated already face smashing the AI so it locks on to the nearest target is just a sloppy version of what I am saying."

 

For me, taunts are different than engaging enemies in melee bc you have to move your characters around to do that. It often means you can't engage an enemy you'd like to without breaking engagement yourself (and then leaving those enemies unguarded). Or, even if you aren't engaged currently, you might have to position your meleer in a sub-optimal manner to engage a particular enemy. E.g., you might need to leave one part of the battle area that you'd like to protect in order to engage a particular enemy. So currently, its a trade-off. You can engage a particular enemy but at the cost of leaving other areas unprotected.

 

I agree that the AI around obstacles is frustrating. It's tolerable to me bc the enemy AI has similar problems when trying to attack your party.

 

As an aside, I'm replaying Darklands bc Serpent in the Staglands was inspired by that game. I didn't remember how bad Darklands' AI was. I'll order party member A, B, and C to attack enemy X and often at least one of them will either just stand there and do nothing or walk in the opposite direction. So I pause, issue a new attack order, and unpause. The party member then starts walking in another direction away from the enemy group. But the enemy does the same thing so it all works out in the end. It's given me a new appreciation of AI in more recent games.

Edited September 29, 2015 by oaktownbrown

[Lord_Mord]

 

 

It's a common misconception that giving players more control over the flow of battle automatically leads to increase in tactical depth. This is not true; there needs to be a balance of control and unpredictability. Being able to plan for failure and to adjust to changing combat situation is a major part of tactics. Explicit control over aggro mechanics leads to static, predictable combat flow, eliminating the need for backup plans and multiple lines of defence.

 

Then we need a system, in which a taunt attempt (sounds funny) can fail. I would suggest a system similar to monkey islands fights.  the interaction screens could be used for that. It works this way: You hit the Taunt-Button, the interaction screen pops up. Throughout the game you learned taunts from your enemies, depending on your stats. That means, if you are an intelligent guy, you can memorize a lot of eloquent taunts, if your more of a barbarian, you can call your enemies pigs or something. The taunt only works well if it is appropriate to your enemies intelligence. Then there is a roll, depending on other stats, the enemy is engaged, if it does not fail. I think, a lot of people would find that system annoying, but screw them! They fight like cows.

[Gorth]

Removed a handful posts that looked like a nervous octopus had all hands on deck... or keyboard, or whatever

[curryinahurry]

 

As an aside, I'm replaying Darklands bc Serpent in the Staglands was inspired by that game. I didn't remember how bad Darklands' AI was. I'll order party member A, B, and C to attack enemy X and often at least one of them will either just stand there and do nothing or walk in the opposite direction. So I pause, issue a new attack order, and unpause. The party member then starts walking in another direction away from the enemy group. But the enemy does the same thing so it all works out in the end. It's given me a new appreciation of AI in more recent games.

 

That is likely the pathfinding, not AI, but yes, it is pretty hilarious to see one of your characters walk around half the map to attack the enemy.  There were a few Raubritter fights where my monk was all the way on the other side of the map trying to go around a wooded area.

 

 

Bringing back on topic...I wonder how hard it would be to have enemies switch to ranged weapons if they can't get around an obsticle?  Not an option for monsters that only have one form of attack, but at least fighting Kith would be a bit better.

Edited September 29, 2015 by curryinahurry

[spardeous]

Being someone who finds decking his entire team out in plate armor to be immersion breaking in a cookie cutter 'one size fits all' kind of way, I also dislike the current engagement system.

As long as enemies continue to disregard the safety of their back lines and charge suicidally through the player's front lines, managing engagement will continue to be about limiting exposure, rather than combat tactics. In other words, hallway tanking.

Tying up back lines combatants is supposed to be the role of ranged fighters, not melee. Knowingly allowing your support/retreat line to be cut off and giving your back to the enemy is suicidal, yet this is exactly what the AI does every time.

Edited September 30, 2015 by spardeous