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Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity [BETA RELEASED, GO TO THE NEW THREAD]

Delterius

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Entre a serra e o mar.
While Bottlenecks were downplayed, you could often block doors with two characters. Sometimes one, especially if you are using the golem.
You couldn't really block them per say. While mobs would very likely attack the character they are closest to (which is the one you put in doorway), the only reason they wouldn't attack others was aggro mechanic. If a mob happened to target a character behind the one "blocking" his way, he'd just slide through and be on his way. A sufficiently fat character (like a summoned bear) in conjunction with forcefield spell could become a real physical obstacle in the enemy's way, but unless you want to resort to such cheesy tactics it was aggro all the way. And escaping AOE effects sounds more like kiting than actual positioning.

I am fully aware of the threat mechanics that DA:O used and I'm saying that you could block some passageways with multiple characters. This was a flimsy tactic, since you often don't want characters next to each other and also because many spells and techniques push people aside.

And I don't think kiting was actually a thing in DA:O. Besides, I'm talking about avoiding your own AoEs, not the enemies'.
 

The Bishop

Cipher
Joined
Oct 18, 2012
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406
I am fully aware of the threat mechanics that DA:O used and I'm saying that you could block some passageways with multiple characters. This was a flimsy tactic, since you often don't want characters next to each other and also because many spells and techniques push people aside.
It's not just spells and techniques. The collision mechanic would push characters aside even if somebody just walks towards you, so my take is that enemies were simply targeting your front men because of aggro, not because they couldn't move through. I don't know, maybe we played different versions of the game, but in my experience for as long as enemy wanted to move past you he would (with some delay maybe), and I tested it quite extensively.

And I don't think kiting was actually a thing in DA:O.
What do you do when you see a fireball flying towards you or have mob chasing your mage? On higher difficulty I found kiting quite essential.

Besides, I'm talking about avoiding your own AoEs, not the enemies'.
Moving aside so that mage can use cone of cold isn't my understanding of positioning either. Perhaps it is, strictly speaking, but it's so trivial it seems irrelevant.
 

Delterius

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Entre a serra e o mar.
I remember it well, characters weren't pushed away during combat. But you're the second person who claims I'm wrong, so I probably am.

I don't think kiting was that useful against Fireballs since they are targeted at your party members once cast. What you'd want is something other than kiting, which is cover and luring the stupid AI all the way to your party. Elemental resistances and focus fire from afar works just as well though.

And I do agree this kind of positioning is trivial, that's my experience with grid-less games anyway.
 

861129

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gone, not around any longer
Characters definitely got pushed around during combat. There was no mechanism to block enemies if they decided to walk past/through, and no attacks of opportunity to punish them for it either if I recall. God damnit the way one's tanks would just step aside pissed me off.
 
Self-Ejected

Lilura

RPG Codex Dragon Lady
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5,274
That isn't entirely true, though.
You can face a wizard with wizardry, but you also have Inquisitors, Carsomyr, The Staff of Magi... A thief with Detect Illusions could dispel a lot of things, too.
There were plenty of options.. not all obvious, but then again high level wizards are supposed to be POWERFUL.

I'll miss that, I know it already.

I think you will miss it, Project Eternity is looking to be weak tea so far. Some things they've said about how they're implementing magic and damage made me shake my head a little...

But I agree totally. In AD&D2 you're supposed to dread high-level arcane spellcasters. It is written in the rules and in the lore that wizards are someone you don't fuck with.
You're right that BG2 does give you some alternatives to taking them on (most of them are sort of cheap or clumsy), but by and large, you have to engage them on their own terms, IOW, with your own wizards. Dunno why people have a problem with the concept but I hope they don't experience the airtightness of SCS2 Ascension mages, their head would cave in on itself.
 
Self-Ejected

Lilura

RPG Codex Dragon Lady
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A couple of vids I watched with Sawyer and Cain, the former speaking of a compromise between Vancian and cooldowns, the latter speaking of not including any enemies immune to specific damage types.
 

Cynic

Arcane
Joined
Feb 22, 2011
Messages
1,850
I'm wondering about the system/mechanics talk they did during the KS. I mean, they didn't have a vision document at all, they hadn't really done shit yet. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of it changes. Perhaps it already has and I'm just out of the loop. Are cool downs still in?
 
Self-Ejected

Excidium

P. banal
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No cooldowns as far as I know. You have different types of abilities that have a limited number of usages that are re-gained between battles or after resting.
 

Gelbvieh

Educated
Joined
Mar 22, 2013
Messages
142
Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera
Has anyone ever made an isometric RtwP cRPG without miss chance or a THAC0 system? Warhammer tabletop would more or less fit iirc, except for not being a cRPG. Skyrim at max cam distance? :oops:
 

Gelbvieh

Educated
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Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera
Ahh, reading comprehension fail on my part. Wasn't actually what Sawyer was proposing with P:E.
 

Osvir

Learned
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Oct 7, 2012
Messages
193
That isn't entirely true, though.
You can face a wizard with wizardry, but you also have Inquisitors, Carsomyr, The Staff of Magi... A thief with Detect Illusions could dispel a lot of things, too.
There were plenty of options.. not all obvious, but then again high level wizards are supposed to be POWERFUL.

I'll miss that, I know it already.

I think you will miss it, Project Eternity is looking to be weak tea so far. Some things they've said about how they're implementing magic and damage made me shake my head a little...

But I agree totally. In AD&D2 you're supposed to dread high-level arcane spellcasters. It is written in the rules and in the lorethat wizards are someone you don't fuck with.
You're right that BG2 does give you some alternatives to taking them on (most of them are sort of cheap or clumsy), but by and large, you have to engage them on their own terms, IOW, with your own wizards. Dunno why people have a problem with the concept but I hope they don't experience the airtightness of SCS2 Ascension mages, their head would cave in on itself.

I kind of expect to be able to build "POWERFUL" Wizards myself, it makes perfect sense (to me) that if I am able to do so that there would be mythical/epic (i.e: "POWERFUL") enemy Wizards that I can face.


Oh and about engagement and what it seems Obsidian wants to do with combat:

Quote #1

J.E. Sawyer, on 27 Feb 2013 - 19:23, said:

Sabotin, on 27 Feb 2013 - 17:15, said:
It should be VERY clear what's happening, with some icons or symbolism to see when a character is engaged.

Speaking of which, instead of totally blocking movement, how about making the character move extremely slow instead? Sort of simulating those 5ft steps from d&d. You could then still turn the character (flanking/backstabs/whatnot) by moving slowly around him or lead it to someone better suited for killing him/keeping him in check. Or a fighter "gathering" more opponents, hehe.

The disengagement should also be very clear I think, perhaps requiring a press of a button, or if right-clock means movement, then disengage+move could be shift+righ-click or something? Doing it by mistake could be really frustrating. I also have a concern about this - By how it was described, if a melee character catches you and is actively attacking you, short of a special disengagement skill or outside help you have no way to get away from him (because of the hit reaction)?

What happens when you have multiple people in a melee fight though, I could see that complicating things a bit animation wise. In NWN the AoO and Cleave attacks could prevent regular attacks from happening on time, could change the attack target etc. NWN2 solved the problem in favor of the mechanics side, but it could still look rather silly (though I preferred it)...

Our plan is to use the selection circles (which all characters have) to indicate when they are engaging, engaged, and the targets involved. The most typical example would be two melee combatants moving toward each other and starting to fight. Their selection circles would increase in thickness when they are engaged and a short, overlapping line would run from the circle of the enemy engaging them toward their circle. I.e., characters who are engaged/engaging are visually linked through their selection circles.

We do not want to slow movement because that is not as clear as stopping movement and requiring you to give new input to move the character. We also very much intend for this to require you to be more careful with moving your characters. Yes, moving away from an engaging character can be difficult because of the risk involved, but that's the intention of the mechanic. We don't want it to be overly punitive, but we do want people to be wary about moving around melee enemies.

Disengagement Attacks will likely not be animated on the character's mesh. They will probably be abstracted in a fashion similar to NWN2 (though if we can find a higher fidelity solution, such as a duplicate "ghost" mesh to animate those attacks, we would use that).

Quote #2

J.E. Sawyer, on 27 Feb 2013 - 19:46, said:
n0mDePlume, it sounds like you prefer a different type of micromanagement, not that you don't want to micromanage. Users on this forum have consistently (though obviously not universally) expressed a general dislike of standard aggro/tanking mechanics. Engagement is not conceptually much different from threatened area/AoOs, which we already had experience with in NWN2. It's also a mechanic that many tabletop D&D players are familiar with if they've played 3E, 3.5, and 4E.

In IE games, you typically don't move full parties through melee. You typically move a few characters to ranged positions and a select number of characters into melee with specific targets. It's true that if you click past melee enemies who are not engaged and run past them, they will engage you. That's entirely the point of the mechanic. I certainly understand if not everyone likes it, but it feels more in the spirit of D&D mechanics as well as mechanics that were in NWN and NWN2.


Quote #3

J.E. Sawyer, on 27 Feb 2013 - 20:09, said:
We're not making a single-character MMO. We're making a party-based RPG. We're making it to appeal to the general tastes of audiences that have played D&D-based tactical party RPGs in the past. Yes, when you play a single character, having that single character be locked down is annoying because your only character is prevented from moving. You have a whole party to use.

We're also making this game for an audience that we believe wants increased challenge and will not react negatively to mechanics that require increased attention and player input. There are clearly limits to this, but we are willing to try this mechanic because we believe it is more appropriate for our audience.


Or just read Page 5 of Update #44.

I think it sounds hopeful in theory. I'd love to see a prototype in practice.
 
Self-Ejected

Excidium

P. banal
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Ahh, reading comprehension fail on my part. Wasn't actually what Sawyer was proposing with P:E.
That's a serious reading failure. :M

Also it might make sense in a game like Warhammer because it's abstracted at a higher level and is mainly about melee squads squashing each other so rolling "to-hit" is quite pointless. In an RPG it's another story, every swing counts, as evident that you actually roll your WS/BS to see if you hit in the WH RPG.
 

DeepOcean

Arcane
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Nov 8, 2012
Messages
7,404
Combat system being shitty or not doen't matter when most of the game encounters were: 3-4 easy to kill enemies, one HP bloated captain and very rarely a mage that used weak spells most of the time. There is very few encounters in the game where tha enemy was on a superior position and have more than 2 archers. The boss fights were HP bloat boring grind. It was WoW trying to be BG2. The whole fight againt the massive numbers of orc archers in the first cave on IWD involved more tactics than all DA:O combat encounters.
 

Arkeus

Arcane
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Oct 9, 2012
Messages
1,406
the latter speaking of not including any enemies immune to specific damage types.
That must be p. old considering they designed that whole resistance system that is about juggling different types of weapons and abilities.
Sawyer wants there to be INEFFICIENT ways of doing things, but not to have enemies outright immune so that you -need- a acid spell to finish those trolls.
 

Cynic

Arcane
Joined
Feb 22, 2011
Messages
1,850
So this engagement business is basically AoO right? Can someone explain how this is going to work in RTWP without turning the combat into a cluster fuck? IWD2 has 3rd Ed rules implemented right? Did it have AoOs? How did it work (I never played IWD much).
 

Infinitron

I post news
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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
So this engagement business is basically AoO right? Can someone explain how this is going to work in RTWP without turning the combat into a cluster fuck? IWD2 has 3rd Ed rules implemented right? Did it have AoOs? How did it work (I never played IWD much).

IWD2 did not implement attacks of opportunity. The engine couldn't support them.

Engagement isn't quite the same thing since it "locks" your character.
 

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