Better party formations?

[Archaven]

Not sure if this were discussed. But wouldn't be nice if there are more party formations customizations / presets in Deadfire? I find them a bit lacking in first PoE. By the way, what do people think of party formations? Are they really useful or useless? In terms of engagement, if party members stay together it gets easily AOEed. If they were to be separated, then each party member should have some tankiness or some form of escape mechanism or they be easy food for some enemy tanks. Are they designing each party members can be more sustainable this time around? Or perhaps players need to figure out themselves on this?

[Flamenstein]

Well the whole placement on the battlefield is funky in PoE 1 - I would have the tankier companions guard the rangers and mages, since enemy AI really loved taking out the mage first. Just running in with the default formation is most of the time a suicide. Unless Obsidian somehow made it more flexible I see no point in changing the formations - they are not useful in combat anyway. Besides, you could make your own formations in PoE1.

[Sedrefilos]

Well the game has (Pillars 1 did to) custom party formation so you can say it has limitless formations. Tbh, in normal difficulty at least, I didn't find formations THAT important. Yes I had my stadard custom formation with whom I wanted to be on the front, in the middle and back and how far away from each other but when you entered a chaotic combat with many enemies (especially coming from all the ways around you), which was something common, my formation didn't do much

Edited August 6, 2017 by Sedrefilos

[MaxQuest]

I find them a bit lacking in first PoE. By the way, what do people think of party formations? Are they really useful or useless?

Ability to set formation was definitely useful for me.

 

Distance to target plays a major role in target selection by enemy AI. And formation allows you to adjust this distance for the start of combat. I used only one formation though.

 

But wouldn't be nice if there are more party formations customizations / presets in Deadfire?

It would be nice to have different formation grids. I.e. beside the usual one, also the brick or hex grid, for better placement of the midliners:

 

Default grid:

 

Brick grid:

 

Hex grid:

 

 

 

Also it would be great, if we could hotkey different formations, and when we switch, main character would shout something like Testudo! Regroup! and the non-engaged party members would spread accordingly.

 

P.S. And the initial placement at the start of scripted combat should use selected formation and not the order of portraits (which is not even communicated by the game).

Edited August 6, 2017 by MaxQuest

[Hound]

Just use the party formation system that is in place in Tyranny and everything will be fine.

[injurai]

I'd like a more granular grid. Where you might not be able to pack them too tight, but as long as they aren't crowding, the distances between are more free form.

 

I'd also be cool to have "engagement behavior" sort of like american football plays. Where you can have certain characters naturally spread out, flank left, etc. right as engagement starts, but other wise keeps a tight and orderly formation for standard ambulation. Sometimes I start every battle with the same general "get into position strategy" I'd like that to be automatic unless I'm feeling the situation calls for a little something else.