Pillars of Eternity Beta Discussion [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Sensuki]

Yeah Chilloutman on the Obs forums (who I PM'd after he had a go at me in the thread, problem now solved) said the same thing after I showed him the video as well. I'm not so sure about that though and here is what I said in response

If the AI pathfinds around Engagement zones, you can still proc easy disengagement attacks by slightly moving your character when the AI is near, all you would have to do is shuffle forward a tiny bit and suddenly the enemy AI would be in your engagement zone. This would force them to attack the first enemy that engaged them, however since Engagement radius is a circle around the character, circles can overlap, and enemies would proc disengagement attacks from nearby characters and possibly from the engager if they had to move to get in range. This would also create issues with pathfinding, because if enemies were programmed to avoid engagement zones, it would be very very time consuming to code a solution that allows them to smartly decide when to move through engagement zones and when not to - which would make them get stuck, and also allow the player to make enemies get stuck and completely block off pathways in narrow spaces.

I could just move a character left and right across a narrow hallway, and if the enemy AI was trying to decide whether to run through my engagement circle or to avoid it they would probably stutter on the spot because they would be constantly reevaluating against the change in conditions.

 

[Shevek]

Frankly, if you want to actively shuffle around that much kill via engagement, I would be fine with the exploit persisting just like I was with most IE tactics that trivialized encounters. If a player puts that much effort to game the system, let him. It just shouldnt be super easy to do without significant player input.

 

[Infinitron]

Yes, the purpose of melee engagement is to create "sticky front lines" in combat. Pointing out egregious exploits caused by its implementation might scare somebody at Obsidian, but they might also say "Exploits are exploits, but at the end of the day, this mechanic still does its job and solves a problem from the IE games". Can you make a video of melee engagement actually failing at its intended purpose - defending a squishy mage with a fighter in a choke point?

 

[Sensuki]

It "succeeds" in doing three things - (a) it makes the first enemy (or enemies) that run by a melee character attack that melee character, (b) it stops one very narrow instance of ranged units kiting melee units (when a melee unit reaches a ranged unit, that ranged unit cannot run away without provoking a disengagement attack) and (c) it heavily penalizes all movement in melee, once melee has begun.

The first two things it succeeds in doing can be replicated by other things. (a) can be replicated by AI targeting clauses alone, (b) can be replicated by melee units with CC abilities (and limitation makes more sense, because certain classes will be better at it than others) and (c) is not necessarily a good thing at all.

Removal of Melee Engagement will prevent the exploits, points (a) and (b) can be easily replicated and the game will have more options available for various play styles in combat. It will also cost them less to develop, than fixing Engagement altogether (saving precious Kaz art time, and removing visual clutter from the screen in engagement arrows and custom engagement selection circles). To me that's a win win.

 

[Infinitron]

(a) can be replicated by AI targeting clauses alone

Yeah, what you're suggesting here is making the AI intentionally dumb though - "I will attack this fighter here even though I originally wanted to get at the mage behind him, and even though I have no reason not to keep on going".

I think the whole "kiting" thing isn't really as relevant as some people think. The originally stated intention of melee engagement was front line fighters defending squishy mages - full stop. Nobody ever said anything about kiting.

 

[Hormalakh]

holy shit...you're saying keep the exploit? are you serious? why the fuck are we wasting time with this shit then? Why have engagement in the first place if we're going to keep exploits in willy-nilly?

The WHOLE point of engagement was to remove exploits. Why WASTE HUNDREDS of hours on this shit if it's so easily exploitable? Are they done with all the other stuff that they can fuck around with this nonsense?

You guys are now just being obstinate. Now you're just nursing your egos and Josh's.

That is not a good answer. "Just leave it in." Fucking senseless....

 

[Sensuki]

Yeah, what you're suggesting here is making the AI intentionally dumb though - "I will attack this fighter here even though I originally wanted to get at the mage behind him, and even though I have no reason not to keep on going".

No, the AI is already intentionally dumb. It's not me that wants to keep it that way, it's the people that enjoy the engagement mechanic. That's not what I want, but I would accept it behaving the same if there were no disengagement attacks. It's a victory for me if only a small one. I would prefer enemies to act closer to how they did in IWD:HoW.

To be honest, the AI behaviour in Icewind Dale Heart of Winter was pretty damn good - better than Baldur's Gate and Pillars of Eternity for sure. I'll be posting a few videos about how good the target reacquisition is in it in my Engagement thread.

I think the whole "kiting" thing isn't really as relevant as some people think. The originally stated intention of melee engagement was front line fighters defending squishy mages - full stop. Nobody ever said anything about kiting.

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/63432-update-44-the-rules-of-melee-engagement/

Melee engagement is a solution to two common problems in the Infinity Engine games: melee characters' inability to control an area and ranged characters' ability to "kite" melee characters.

The first one is not even an issue in Icewind Dale Heart of Winter. And I have a video about BG target reacquisition already recorded. The AI is not very good in BG1 or 2, but you can manipulate it to attack your desired target easily.

 

[Infinitron]

Melee engagement is a solution to two common problems in the Infinity Engine games: melee characters' inability to control an area and ranged characters' ability to "kite" melee characters.

Whoops, I stand corrected. In the video he only talked about defending a mage with a fighter though, so I interpreted that as being the primary function of the mechanic.

I just think you shouldn't disregard the fact that this IS a problem in these sorts of games. Somebody complained about it just recently in another thread: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...g-the-river-of-time.95631/page-3#post-3622883

What's your opinion on massively weakened disengagement attacks? Like, just make it an extra standard attack.

 

[Seari]

I still don't get what the problem with kiting is. If a ranged unit is running away, it can't attack, so what's the fucking problem? If there are two units that are switching aggro and kiting one enemy, then how is that game breaking - it is 2v1 after all.

Also in PoE if there's a straggler going after your mage, just use CC abilities, i.e. Knock Down. Again, what's the problem here?

 

[Sensuki]

It is an extra standard attack already. It's no different from any normal attack. To me it's an all or nothing thing, you either want them to be punishing or not have them at all. Even if they are nerfed to half damage, I'm still not going to move, creatures in this game hit hard, and a half-damage disengagement attack from an Elder Bear would still be 50 damage, no thanks. Everything in this game is done in percentages

I understand the whole wanting to lock people in melee thing, but I just don't think it suits this game.



Here's how to manipulate the BG and BG2 AI to target who you want, it's not great, but that's how you do it.

I will record IWD videos tomorrow.

 

[Hormalakh]

It's weak-ass shit. This is the whole point!

There are WAYYYY better options for these sorts of things. For a long time, people have been making games and they have been trying to balance these sorts of things. Most of these games are REAL-TIME and use solutions that fit their game. Games like Warcraft 3, Dota2, Age of Empires, StarCraft, and then IWD have really worked on these problems. Why not look at how other games have done this and think of solutions that are simple, yet elegant. Not a massive behemoth that has a billion ways of being exploited.

The issue with engagement is that while it's trying (failing) to solve two problems, it's instead introduced 5 other problems in its stead. This isn't IE evolved, this is something completely new and not building on previous successes. Its weird for me to see a developer just throw mechanics away from old games in lieu of new ones without thinking that they were possibly done like that in the first place because there wasn't a better solution they could think of. Evolution - not metamorphosis.

 

[Shevek]

holy shit...you're saying keep the exploit? are you serious? why the fuck are we wasting time with this shit then? Why have engagement in the first place if we're going to keep exploits in willy-nilly?

The WHOLE point of engagement was to remove exploits. Why WASTE HUNDREDS of hours on this shit if it's so easily exploitable? Are they done with all the other stuff that they can fuck around with this nonsense?

You guys are now just being obstinate. Now you're just nursing your egos and Josh's.

That is not a good answer. "Just leave it in." Fucking senseless....

You are not tracking the conversation correctly.

 

[Sensuki]

Also in PoE if there's a straggler going after your mage, just use CC abilities, i.e. Knock Down. Again, what's the problem here?

Exactly.

 

[Hormalakh]

Frankly, if you want to actively shuffle around that much kill via engagement, I would be fine with the exploit persisting just like I was with most IE tactics that trivialized encounters. If a player puts that much effort to game the system, let him. It just shouldnt be super easy to do without significant player input.

What is the point of leaving in an exploit after hundred of hours on a totally new mechanic? Why not just use the old solution. What did we gain from recreating the wheel? A marginal "improvement" in exploits? Why weren't you OK with leaving the old IE mechanic in, but now that your false gods have been shown for what they are, it's ok to leave it in?

For a second, just put your ego aside and think about this rationally. This is about making a better game and more robust game, one that is tactically challenging and not frustrating to new players (that is to say it should be intuitive). What we see is instead a complex system just for the sake of complexity, with a loss of tactical challenge, and extremely frustrating to all players (new and old).

See Jesse Cox and Josh Sawyer explaining to him at least three times that he can't run away (something intuitive) from a battle. See all the posts about the frustration people see with combat and not knowing why their players are being downed. Look at the auto-attack AI that forces your players to suddenly auto-attack. Look at the bugs (that have yet to be mentioned yet) with regards to suddenly making your character stop when they're engaged. Look at the bugs that they've had to fix just to get it to "play well enough." Think of all the new AI and UI that they have to incorporate just to get this mechanic to play well enough. We've had all sorts of crazy, cluttering UI things added to an already visually scrambled screen.

Pushing forward with something that doesn't work is NOT the answer. Sometimes you have to realize your mistake and start back from the ground up. Like they did with pathing and AI.

 

[Infinitron]

To me it's an all or nothing thing, you either want them to be punishing or not have them at all. Even if they are nerfed to half damage, I'm still not going to move

Well, maybe this is the real problem. I think that choosing to move when engaged SHOULD be a plausible option that a player might often decide to take. If it isn't, that means "no brainer", which as we know, Sawyer dislikes.

 

[tuluse]

I still don't get what the problem with kiting is. If a ranged unit is running away, it can't attack, so what's the fucking problem? If there are two units that are switching aggro and kiting one enemy, then how is that game breaking - it is 2v1 after all.

Also in PoE if there's a straggler going after your mage, just use CC abilities, i.e. Knock Down. Again, what's the problem here?

The problem isn't stragglers.

If you're down to stragglers the battle is won already anyways.

 

[Hormalakh]

The other thing is that I've tried to utilize some of these "disengage abilities" like the rogue's escape. The problem is that it never works right! It's not intuitive.

 

[Seari]

How does targeting work with SCS installed? I'm pretty sure enemies focus down the lowest hp targets if they're in melee range. I'm replaying with a kensai, and enemies seem to focus him a lot, so it seems to take AC into account as well.

Stragglers as in enemy units that run away from the pack and past your front-line.

 

[Infinitron]

I think you mean "skirmisher", not "straggler"

 

[tuluse]

The other thing is that I've tried to utilize some of these "disengage abilities" like the rogue's escape. The problem is that it never works right! It's not intuitive.

It took me a while to figure out, when you activate escape you have to click where you want to escape to.

How does targeting work with SCS installed? I'm pretty sure enemies focus down the lowest hp targets if they're in melee range. I'm replaying with a kensai, and enemies seem to focus him a lot, so it seems to take AC into account as well.

Stragglers as in enemy units that run away from the pack and past your front-line.

The point is to give fighters a role. They are the line holders in PoE. They have massive deflection and heath, and they can engage 3 enemies at once. So it's really hard to get past them. Without the engagement, they're just hp bags.

Plus any actual competent AI would focus down mages (and mage-likes) exclusively.

I think you mean "skirmisher", not "straggler"

No he doesn't. He means solitary units that break through the front lines.

 

[Athelas]

I still don't get what the problem with kiting is. If a ranged unit is running away, it can't attack, so what's the fucking problem?

Have you played the IE games? You can get a permanent headstart on your enemy by attacking with ranged weapons -> running away -> attacking again -> etc. You can pretty much attack while running away. It's a very solid (and cheesy) tactic.

 

[Sensuki]

Disengagement Attack Kiting a single character, got another video incoming of Disengagement attacks with 3 Barbarians doing about as well as the 6 Fighters did.

 

[tuluse]

I still don't get what the problem with kiting is. If a ranged unit is running away, it can't attack, so what's the fucking problem?

Have you played the IE games? You can get a permanent headstart on your enemy by attacking with ranged weapons -> running away -> attacking again -> etc. It's a very solid (and cheesy) tactic.

This is somewhat fixed in PoE by having recovery time not go down when moving. This does a good job stopping 1 character from solo kiting.

 

[Athelas]

I still don't get what the problem with kiting is. If a ranged unit is running away, it can't attack, so what's the fucking problem?

Have you played the IE games? You can get a permanent headstart on your enemy by attacking with ranged weapons -> running away -> attacking again -> etc. It's a very solid (and cheesy) tactic.

This is somewhat fixed in PoE by having recovery time not go down when moving. This does a good job stopping 1 character from solo kiting.

That's been removed, actually.

You can presumably thank Sensuki for that.

Or curse him for it.

The ridiculously long reload animations for ranged weapons (except for bows) do a good enough job of disencentivizing that behavior, though.

 

[Seari]

I still don't get what the problem with kiting is. If a ranged unit is running away, it can't attack, so what's the fucking problem?

Have you played the IE games? You can get a permanent headstart on your enemy by attacking with ranged weapons -> running away -> attacking again -> etc. You can pretty much attack while running away. It's a very solid (and cheesy) tactic.

Enlighten me as to how this works when you're against multiple enemies, some of which have ranged weapons?