Engagement System Questions

[almondblight]

Well when the opinion is not your own, and makes objective claims about analytical thought, it'd be nice to know where it comes from. Not all opinions are equally valid.

I know what you mean. When DU replaced user names with numbers, I didn't know if I should brofist a post or not. Was the post stupid or brilliant? Without the username, there was no way to tell.

But since your curious, the quote is from here. Not terribly obscure (I wouldn't be surprised if a number of posters recognize it).

So where in that does it talk about Checkers?

Draughts is checkers.

 

[Mangoose]

Well when the opinion is not your own, and makes objective claims about analytical thought, it'd be nice to know where it comes from. Not all opinions are equally valid.

I know what you mean. When DU replaced user names with numbers, I didn't know if I should brofist a post or not. Was the post stupid or brilliant? Without the username, there was no way to tell.

But since your curious, the quote is from here. Not terribly obscure (I wouldn't be surprised if a number of posters recognize it).

From a narrator of a short story lol.

 

[Irenaeus]

Engagement works great so far. I'm enjoying combat very much. I didn't need any kind of Beginner's guide, just reading, experimenting with a few tries and learning from doing. Guess man IS a learning animal.

Congratulations to Obsidian for making the best cRPG of the last 10 years.

 

[Sensuki]

I already know the effect because that's exactly what you do in your IWD videos and that was the problem for me with the IE games mechanics: complete cheesecake combats.

Man you keep bringing up my IWD videos, the reason I can blaze around like that is because of the fucking AC system, not because there's no movement hindrance. In 2E AD&D you can pile AC on top of a Fighter and nothing can hit him, so you can just run around, never get him and you have the best THAC0 in the game as well, so you can just destroy everything.

In this game, that wouldn't happen. Eder would be able to run around and not take that much damage, but he can't deal anything back because I built him for defenese. That would be counter-fucking-productive because I need him to aggro. My Rogue who does double the damage of any other character wouldn't be able to do it because she would get _______SMASHED______ because her Deflection is like ... 25? or something at level 5.

 

[ArchAngel]

Another irritating thing I found with engagement is that when I knock back a target the melee guys run after him and disengagement attacks vs them activate in split second before you can react.

It makes turning Off the option to stop movement when character is engaged useless. The game needs to give more control to players, this is unacceptable. I am going to suffer through this game for my first play but for any after that I will be using mods that remove engagement.

 

[Ulminati]

Knockback in general is bad exactly because of engagement. The things you knock back are usually the things your front line has locked down. By knocking them back - even if you stop your front line from suiciding by disengage to chase - you give them a second shot at running past your now-static frontline to get intimate with your wizard.

 

[ArchAngel]

Knockback in general is bad exactly because of engagement. The things you knock back are usually the things your front line has locked down. By knocking them back - even if you stop your front line from suiciding by disengage to chase - you give them a second shot at running past your now-static frontline to get intimate with your wizard.

I do it with a monk because the attack also makes them prone so the enemy is out of combat for a while.

 

[~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.¸-AIN'T]

Yes. Unlike BG2 there is space here for interesting decisions in most fights. However BG2's key fights are still way better than anything I've met in Pillars.

Agreed with this. Fighting trash mobs is more fun in PoE than in IE games. Unfortunately, PoE seems to be mainly made up of trash mobs, with only a few interesting encounters. The bounty fights are the best-designed encounters in the game that I've seen so far, and I'd still put most memorable fights from BG2, and several from BG1 and IWD, above them.

 

[~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.¸-AIN'T]

Knockback in general is bad exactly because of engagement. The things you knock back are usually the things your front line has locked down. By knocking them back - even if you stop your front line from suiciding by disengage to chase - you give them a second shot at running past your now-static frontline to get intimate with your wizard.

On a similar note, the 5th level cipher spell that dominates all enemies in an area sounds really OP, but it's actually usually hilariously awful to use. You end up dominating all the enemies in the front line, who are no longer engaged so they run around randomly. Plus, since you dominated so many of them, they rarely even have anything to attack, then when the domination runs out you've got enemies all over the place and no front line and all your characters end up getting engaged by different enemies, leading to a quick death for your less hardy party members.

 

[polo]

I've read 7 pages of this, and will keep reading in the afternoon.
Just wanted to say what i think.
Before playing the game i did not understand the hate, after playing it (first playthrough on hard), i know understand the hate, but i do NOT hate it. Just don't like it.
I just think its a bad solution for a poor AI, and also a poor solution for kitting. It can be improved tho, one thing this system almost desperately needs is an animation for disengagement attacks, some kind of visual feedback. Im pretty sure Josh and the folks at Obsidian can do better, just that.

 

[MicoSelva]

I do not mind disengagement mechanic. If it is there, it is there, and I will play to take it into account. But I agree with Sensuki that it is artificial and could be probably replaced by something that feels more natural for real-time combat system, or maybe even removed entirely.

 

[hiver]

the fundamental design at display here makes most fights way more interesting than much of what goes on in the IE-games

More interesting than BG2 (the only RTwP game that i consider to have truly great combat)?

No. In any way.

Because the truth is, despite my dislike for many of PoE design desisions, if the combat is at the level even of IWDs (which i consider mediocre), i will adore PoE (if the writing is up to my standards)

Level of IWD is about right.

So it basically fools the AI into thinking it's engaged, but leaves the player free to move at will? Sounds like a cheat mod.

You mean, it doesn't fuck with the AI? I don't understand some of you people. Do you know how AI targeting works? (You know what Engagement is right? - an AI targeting clause and a disengagement attack, that's it). The game is built around the fact that enemies will stop and attack their melee attacker, if you take that out then the AI becomes lot more retarded than it already is.
This is the best way to do it without re-writing the AI.

No, it fucks with the Ai, because in this case the Ai is still considering engagement as serious business - but you removed the consequences from it.

And no, targeting will remain the same even if you remove engagement - which you did - the Ai can still target enemies.
Why would anyone remove basic targeting?

And why wouldnt you rewrite the Ai?
Not you of course, but why is that such a taboo thing in that brain of yours?

Its not like you need to literally write a whole new Ai, only adjust and improve the existing one.

You are not making any sense, but feel free to stick your head into the sand more.

I know what you mean. When DU replaced user names with numbers, I didn't know if I should brofist a post or not. Was the post stupid or brilliant? Without the username, there was no way to tell.

the whole codex is vote by popularity fallacy.

 

[gunman]

If you remove damage from disengagement then the proper AI behavior would be to never stop at your fighters once they spotted a more vulnerable target, but to go around or between your front line and go straight after your wizard. But it would be more annoying that the disengagement damage, wouldn't it?

Or just play on easy and don't mod anything.

 

[hiver]

If you remove damage from disengagement then the proper AI behavior would be to never stop at your fighters

Why? The Ai doesnt know that you removed disengagement damage. It will still do the same as before.

Because Sensuki thinks touching the Ai is BAD.
because!

Even if you would remove the whole engagement, that doesnt mean Ai will stop targeting, or stopping when attacking anyone. Why would it do that for fuck sake?

What would it do then? Run around from enemy to enemy, maybe hitting each once?

Spoiler

Are you all completely retarded?

 

[tdphys]

If you remove damage from disengagement then the proper AI behavior would be to never stop at your fighters once they spotted a more vulnerable target, but to go around or between your front line and go straight after your wizard. But it would be more annoying that the disengagement damage, wouldn't it?

Or just play on easy and don't mod anything.

I'm pretty sure that most IE games AI didn't actually do this (only target squishy target AI), and that would be fairly boring AI combat . Part of the stated (by sensuki) enjoyment of IE play is understanding and dynamically (with movement) exploiting the underlaying AI targetting mechanics. I'm not sure you can say that actually having disengagement gives more or less interesting AI behaviour to counteract. The primary problem is its inordinate damage makes moving already engaged characters prohibitive, thus you can't dynamically respond to threats or exploit weaknesses. I think there's a place in rtwp combat for a cost to dynamic moving (disengagement attacks), but right now it's too cheesable and stops movement because of the accuracy and damage bonus. If anything, it should just be nerfed damage wise and left at regular accuracy bonus.

The nice thing about removing the accuracy bonus, is that high deflection chars could have more ability to move around the field, your tank just became something more then front-line glue.

 

[Sensuki]

I am "exploiting" the AI targeting system as it is, if they target my squishy characters I just don't send my squishy characters forward because there's no point. Some enemies have binary targeting where they will just target one type of character over others (shades/shadows - wizard, archers target archers, etc and many frontline types go for the lowest Deflection character)

Solution - send one high deflection character in against targets that always target low deflection / sit the wizard in the next room against shades/spectres, or just bait them into an alpha strike as you know they are going to jump on him and just don't use bows vs archers / don't send your archers forward (and by Archers I mean equipped with a bow, they don't target people with guns for some reason???)

The way they have coded the AI is simply boring, and creates a binary way of playing as it simply makes other strategies just plain bad.

If you remove damage from disengagement then the proper AI behavior would be to never stop at your fighters once they spotted a more vulnerable target, but to go around or between your front line and go straight after your wizard. But it would be more annoying that the disengagement damage, wouldn't it?

We didn't remove the Engagement AI, they act the same as they do now.

 

[Bubbles]

I see dumb AI as a bigger problem than just the engagement mechanic in itself, since it enables extremely repetitive combat strategies. Of course, really good AI (or at least something on the level of SCS, which has its own limitations) takes a lot of time to code and will probably come down to a fan project, if at all.

 

[Sensuki]

Hopefully they can address it for the expansion. Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter had probably the best targeting AI of all of the Infinity Engine games.

 

[Rostere]

Knockback in general is bad exactly because of engagement. The things you knock back are usually the things your front line has locked down. By knocking them back - even if you stop your front line from suiciding by disengage to chase - you give them a second shot at running past your now-static frontline to get intimate with your wizard.

This sounds pretty retarded.

You shouldn't use knockback on enemies you want to keep engaged. You should use knockback when YOU want to break engagement with an enemy.

I'm pretty sure that most IE games AI didn't actually do this (only target squishy target AI), and that would be fairly boring AI combat .

All enemies making a beeline for the squishiest character they can see would be the only reasonable tactic for IE enemies.

In reality, the IE AI is even more stupid than the PoE AI and will often just attack the nearest enemy.

Part of the stated (by sensuki) enjoyment of IE play is understanding and dynamically (with movement) exploiting the underlaying AI targetting mechanics.

What - you mean kiting?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK6TXMsvgQg

I'm not sure you can say that actually having disengagement gives more or less interesting AI behaviour to counteract. The primary problem is its inordinate damage makes moving already engaged characters prohibitive, thus you can't dynamically respond to threats or exploit weaknesses. I think there's a place in rtwp combat for a cost to dynamic moving (disengagement attacks), but right now it's too cheesable and stops movement because of the accuracy and damage bonus. If anything, it should just be nerfed damage wise and left at regular accuracy bonus.

The nice thing about removing the accuracy bonus, is that high deflection chars could have more ability to move around the field, your tank just became something more then front-line glue.

IMO the amount of damage is about fine as it is, all classes should have had more limited-use disengagement options for disengaging multiple enemies. Secondly, disengagement attacks should be limited by reach and some measure of character speed. A nimble thief running away from a fully armoured knight with a dagger should have an easy time disengaging, while a tardy dwarf turning his back from an aumaua with an estoc should be mauled.

 

[Sensuki]

What - you mean kiting?

No, switching aggro. You can kite in this game very easily as well, btw. Engagement and slowed movement recovery doesn't do anything to stop it.

 

[Rostere]

What - you mean kiting?

No, switching aggro. You can kite in this game very easily as well, btw. Engagement and slowed movement recovery doesn't do anything to stop it.

IIRC in BG, the enemies attack the character they see first first, and switch to another target if they are hit in melee?

That's fine with animals but becomes pretty retarded when you are fighting intelligent beings.

Unless you have played with any mods of course.

 

[Sensuki]

Enemies have different targeting depending on the IE game. Units often go for the lowest AC character, but yeah in the Baldur's Gate games (especially BG1) it isn't uncommon for enemies to attack the closest unit. That's not bad AI per se, and in Pillars of Eternity many enemies also do the same thing. What's important is the re-targeting. At least in the IE games you could get enemies to switch aggro by shuffling your formation, microing characters back but many enemies in this game will simply re-target them when they come back. I think it makes combat quite uninteresting because the only valid tactic against that is to just leave them out of the fight, or do something that flips the targeting. With shades/spectres - they target Wizards, specifically - so just leave your Wizard in the next room, what exactly is good/fun about being forced to play like that?

I haven't played unmodded IE games for over 10 years.

 

[mutonizer]

Hopefully they can address it for the expansion. Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter had probably the best targeting AI of all of the Infinity Engine games.

Yea, really hope they'll take the time to iron some of that out, as well as some pathfinding issues (both on the AI side but above all on the actual engine side as often you think something is fine to walk on and it's not, while other times it is). It's already much better than IE games (non modded) though that's a plus.

That said, I can't really say I would know really how to improve AI per se, especially targeting, without massive efforts. I mean the rule system isn't really suitable for really intelligent targeting and if the AI started doing that more effectively, you'd end up with nothing but 1hd/shield tanks as everyone else would get gang banged or something. Maybe defining more AI roles, each with different ranges of targetting clauses though that's take time and a lot of testing. That's still be predictable and maybe a bit too puzzle-solving. Maybe a smaller task would be to take a closer look at spells/abilities usage and play with that. As it is now, there is a lot of useless frontloading. More variety in enemies grimoires/spell available would be nice too though that's not purely AI. All that should only be for "sentient intelligent beings" however. I don't want beetles, wolves and trolls to start bee-lining on casters and whatnot.

Edit:
As a note however, I'm quite happy with the difficulty level on PotD so far. I think Hard should be Normal and Potd should be Hard (with new PotD that is just crazy shit balls to the wall non stop), but if you don't cheese and ultra meta, it's really good stuff, despite all the little problems.

 

[Sensuki]

Spell and ability usage does need an overhaul for enemies. The one for Ogre Druids is good though. AI is not the only problem though, there's a myriad of things working together that funnel the gameplay into a certain kinda boring playstyle - that said I think we can expect a rules overhaul down the line, much like with WL2 and Div:OS.

After I hit level 4 there really hasn't been that much difficulty other than adjusting to some targeting stuff - Archers in the Dyrford Ruins always targeting Sagani was annoying, so eventually I just reloaded and just sent her in after they were dead and took virtually no damage from anyone.

One really bad problem is pathfinding. I have a screenshot of a line of larger circle units just standing behind each other - there's CLEARLY enough room for them to surround my party, but they can't find the path around.

 

[Rostere]

Enemies have different targeting depending on the IE game. Units often go for the lowest AC character, but yeah in the Baldur's Gate games (especially BG1) it isn't uncommon for enemies to attack the closest unit. That's not bad AI per se, and in Pillars of Eternity many enemies also do the same thing. What's important is the re-targeting. At least in the IE games you could get enemies to switch aggro by shuffling your formation, microing characters back but many enemies in this game will simply re-target them when they come back. I think it makes combat quite uninteresting because the only valid tactic against that is to just leave them out of the fight, or do something that flips the targeting. With shades/spectres - they target Wizards, specifically - so just leave your Wizard in the next room, what exactly is good/fun about being forced to play like that?

Well, IDEALLY in this type of system you would do something like put your Wizards close to your brawling tarpit, and then cleverly disengage them using an ability or similar, while engaging the shades. I do think that PoE lacks more and more varied limited-use disengagement abilities though. Sometimes the only thing you have got is to smack status effects on what you want to disengage and hope your squishy punching bag hasn't died yet when your enemies kiss the floor and slip on banana peels.

Anyways, having intelligent enemies which actually go after your weak points is a very, very, refreshing change from what you typically see.

I haven't played unmodded IE games for over 10 years.

That explains if we have had different experiences. If I would mod, say, BG2, the AI would be the first thing to hit the trash bin. The AI was absolute shite.