So, I was wondering if many people are like me, setting the game to switch game speed to slow during combat. I'm curious how people play in combat in general.

I use fast mode in combats most of the time and pause when I need to give orders to my team.

Normal speed with auto-pause options and of course extra manual pauses whenever I see fit.

Edited October 22, 201510 yr by AndreaColombo

I normally do Slow mode with no pausing, except for one auto pause at the start of combat.

I automatically have it switch to Slow-speed.  I tried normal speed w/ autopauses, but that got messy really quick because I'd try to pause manually right as the game auto-paused, which turned into an unpause and messed up my timing for things.  So now it's just auto-slow with almost no auto-pauses.  This'll probably change though, since I'm getting increasingly fed up with the AI and will likely switch that off permanently soon, at which point I'll likely turn the auto-pausing back on.

I keep it at normal speed, but with auto-pause settings enabled so that the game automatically pauses...

• when combat starts
• when a party member finishes an action
• when a targeted enemy has been killed

This gives the most tactical experience IMO. Almost a little like turn-based.

 

I still need to manually pause in order to activate abilities of melee characters who usually just auto-attack. At higher levels I let the AI take care of that, but for lower levels it would be nice to have an additional auto-pause option that kicks in whenever a combat resource like a Monk wound or Chanter invocation has been unlocked.

+1 for auto-pause on a new ability becoming enabled. Also applies to chanter invocations.

I still need to manually pause in order to activate abilities of melee characters who usually just auto-attack. At higher levels I let the AI take care of that, but for lower levels it would be nice to have an additional auto-pause option that kicks in whenever a combat resource like a Monk wound or Chanter invocation has been unlocked.

 

+1 for auto-pause on a new ability becoming enabled. Also applies to chanter invocations.

 

This sounds nice, but how should it be implemented? I think ideally (but least trivially), you should be able to set a threshold per class. Some players, for instance, would want the game paused by default in preparation for a favorite invocation which is below the max-level rank, and would consider it annoying for the game to pause at 3, 4, 5, 6 chants. For a monk, some players might want it to pause at just one total wound (e.g. for Torment's Reach), others at three (e.g. for Flagellant's Path), others at eight (e.g. for Twins, or simply as an alert to start dumping wounds).

 

This system could also apply for ciphers, to auto pause based on the value of a Focus threshold slider.

 

The main con I see against this system, assuming (with little actual basis) that it would take a relatively small amount of programming time to implement, is the possible interface bloat and complexity it could add to that options menu.

Well that's a good point. Darn you and your logic.

I play on potd. I have the game switch to slow. I only auto-pause on combat start, target destroyed, hidden object found. I find the AI settings largely useless so I still pause often to issue orders. 

 

Overall the combat, while enjoyable, still feels spammy like the pacing is off in some strange way. I think I would prefer less encounters overall but longer more complex individual encounters.