Too bad there is no data on IE games pause ratio.
I'm guessing it's lower on trash (since IE trash is much weaker/micro intensive), but spikes higher mage boss battles, while PoE is more constant. Would be cool to compare between the games and how it ties to player enjoyment, the former seems better on paper.
It would be an interesting metric to compare, but I am pretty sure that while it will come close in some encounters, PoE will be worse on average.
PoE has, on average, high maintenance (ability-clicking) on every character. BG/IWD have low maintenance of usually 3-4 characters, a bit higher on the remaining 2-3. Why "a bit" - at least in my limited BG experience (no SCS), and IWD experience, a mage or priest-class character won't cast more than a couple of spells even in a bigger combat. In the majority of the time when I play, backliners are shooting slings and bows (thieves).
The main reason for pausing in BG/IWD for me is not to click buttons of abilities, but to assign a target to be attacked (melee or ranged). I also pause in order to redirect a party member who can't find his way efficiently (sometimes they bunch up next to an enemy but only one or two party members are actually reaching him in order to hit, the others are just stacking up doing nothing and you have to specifically point them where to stand), but that's pathfinding in the IE games. Conversely, the usual reason for my pausing in PoE is to queue a cast (ability or spellcast) right after the last one ended, so as to not waste time. The not-waste-time concern exists in PoE more than in BG/IWD, because there is no personal initative round.
And when everybody has some active ability in the beginning of combat, the flow gets broken up by much pausing. Once the per-encounter abilities have been cast, the usual need for pausing in PoE is to try to retreat someone who is low on Endurance, usually a lost cause by the time you start retreating.
Yes, they are trying to address this problem in Deadfire by reducing the max party size to 5, but with the other hand, they are making all spells per-encounter, so I don't know how much the party size reduction will be felt, as a maintenance relief. The other decision would be to cut down on active abilities, but that would have been a much more radical solution, especially since we already saw the uproar among people used to PoE's high maintenance and wrongly equating "requiring more maintenance" with "having tactical depth".
My personal taste: I would prefer to have minimal maintenance on most of my party for small encounters, maybe use 2-3 abilities, depending on the encounter. Such encounters shouldn't last more than 3 minutes real time. For bigger set piece encounters, I'd like to manage heavily my backliners, but only use front liners for blocking enemies from reaching the backliners, and occasionaly for active abilities like knockdown or blinding strike. I don't want to have more than 2 (out of a total of 5) party members whose orders would require me to pause the game. For bigger encounters 5-6 minutes of real time would be best, but 7-8 is getting too much (even ToB boss fights didn't last more than 5 minutes, as far as I recall from a recent playthrough). At least that's how I feel, I'll have to test and play in order to confirm. But fortunately, modding is coming for Deadfire...
Low maintenance and sitting back and watching the combat animations, and bracing for my guys getting hit, is a more intense experience for me, compared to keeping my finger on the spacebar just so I can cast the next spell before the timer runs out - the current PoE combat experience.
Well otherwise it's just autoattacking every trash pack in existence while saving up resources for the fights that matter, which is about as fun as watching paint dry, since 90% of the game is trash packs.
I have noticed in my current playthrough that I will usually clear a whole area without using anything but per-encounter abilities, except for one or two more serious encounters where I would cast everything or nearly everything I've got. On PotD, my wizard's spells get depleted in one big combat, and my priest takes two or three encounters to run out of spells. I try not to rest between encounters in the same area, just to keep the intrigue on.
Can anyone recommend a non-shit non-paid screen recording software that lets me record in 720p? I would make an illustration video of the clearing out of Stalwart Village from ogres when I get some time.
