Josh says that the clarity of combat has improved! Yay!

[IndiraLightfoot]

Hi!

 

I re-read Gairnulf's personal wishlist, and I found a gem in there, which merits its own topic.

In PoE, various durations and other cyclic events in combat was very hard to grasp and in essence non-intuitive:

Gairnulf mentions one example:

1. Please let durations/recovery times be based on a more human-readable scale, that easier for mental math. Either a full second or X.5 seconds. Please no more of that 7.3 s.

This may seem like a minor thing, but given that all these durations and cyclic events run by their own timer, you got a gazillion timers going at the same time during combat, so even if you pause like crazy, due to interrupts of abilities about to be used, etc., the whole thing gets overwhelming, and I say this as a very seasoned CRPG-player. Imagine how it feels like for beginners.

 

We also have the news that spells will take longer to cast and other empowered abilities being set on timers.

 

PoE2 runs the risk of suffering from overlapping timer overload, not very appetizing at all.

 

So, the systems are being re-worked anyways, and what better way for a computer game, where the player's expected to control five party members, than to simplify and introduce a solid timer foundation with combat rounds/turns or whatever you may call it? 

Let these be simple units, like 1, 2, etc, no decimals.

 

The same, I reckon, should go for damage dealt. No more "0.7 damage". Sometime simplicity is not only the easiest, but the best thing too.

Edited February 4, 2017 by IndiraLightfoot

[Ninjamestari]

You've heard about something called rounding? Just do that in your head, and round down. If getting 0.2 seconds of overlap is going to screw up your game, you're doing something very, very, very wrong. Getting rid of decimals would just mess up the stat system that works on %bonuses, so hell no.

[IndiraLightfoot]

You've heard about something called rounding? Just do that in your head, and round down. If getting 0.2 seconds of overlap is going to screw up your game, you're doing something very, very, very wrong. Getting rid of decimals would just mess up the stat system that works on %bonuses, so hell no.

As you should have garnered just by looking at my portrait, I'm a RPG vet, and a CRPG vet at that. I soloed PotD within days of the release of PoE. I'm a math major too, so please, cut your snarky interwebz attitude. So, yeah, I can crunch some numbers and I can play PoE, but I'm still annoyed by these decimal numbers and overlapping timers, since it's not an intuitive system and it's hardly inviting or very user-friendly. Using non-decimal units in some kind of round/turn-based system presented to the player wouldn't diminish the quality of the system in any way. It's a matter of readability. Personally, I don't need rounding stuff like this, like you do, but imagine players who are new to this type of game. They may get overwhelmed by juggling six characters, all with abilities etc. on different timers with decimal precision, used against critters on, once again, different timers with decimal precision.

Obviously, this isn't a matter of "getting rid of decimals". They will always be there, you know. But like in programming, this should be under the hood, in the woodwork.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Apparently, I'm not alone in thinking that combat in PoE needs more clarity.

Josh said the following in the MMORG interview published yesterday:

MMORPG: On the flip side of that, what part of the game would you award the “Most Improved” prize to?

Josh Sawyer: 

On the gameplay side, we're focusing on improving the clarity and pace of combat  We have fewer "trash" mob fights, combat is much easier to follow, and the players' build options are a lot wider.

We're making a number of significant changes to combat to improve clarity and pacing and increase tactical decision making within fights.  We've changed how we build and render our visual effects to reduce noise, we've slightly slowed down the overall speed of combat, spaced the characters out more.

Additionally, we've tried to make the system cleaner, especially when it comes to the Affliction system and what tools the player has available to counter them.  Our stacking rules have been cleaned up (there aren't any limitations for equipment) and player feedback has been improved overall.

 

 

Read more at http://www.mmorpg.com/interviews/pillars-of-eternity-2-deadfire-new-info-including-release-window-1000011527#XbDfzIyKuRhpZPBe.99

 

This sounds very promising.

Edited February 4, 2017 by IndiraLightfoot

[Eurhetemec]

 

Apparently, I'm not alone in thinking that combat in PoE needs more clarity.

Josh said the following in the MMORG interview published yesterday:

MMORPG: On the flip side of that, what part of the game would you award the “Most Improved” prize to?

Josh Sawyer: 

On the gameplay side, we're focusing on improving the clarity and pace of combat  We have fewer "trash" mob fights, combat is much easier to follow, and the players' build options are a lot wider.

We're making a number of significant changes to combat to improve clarity and pacing and increase tactical decision making within fights.  We've changed how we build and render our visual effects to reduce noise, we've slightly slowed down the overall speed of combat, spaced the characters out more.

Additionally, we've tried to make the system cleaner, especially when it comes to the Affliction system and what tools the player has available to counter them.  Our stacking rules have been cleaned up (there aren't any limitations for equipment) and player feedback has been improved overall.

 

 

Read more at http://www.mmorpg.com/interviews/pillars-of-eternity-2-deadfire-new-info-including-release-window-1000011527#XbDfzIyKuRhpZPBe.99

 

This sounds very promising.

 

 

That does sound great, because replaying Pillars right now, telling what exactly is going on is challenging. The combat log scrolls at 1000mph but if you make it big enough to read properly it takes up a huge amount of screen real-estate! I'd rather not feel like I needed to read it, either. Oddly enough I didn't have this issue with the older Infinity Engine games.

 

Anyway, it's "Most Improved", great!

[Gfted1]

Huzzah! Thats very encouraging news to me.