Engagement System Questions

[Infinitron]

Anthony Davis I think the engagement mechanic is so fundamental to the way melee combat works, that in order to really do it justice you guys needed to design the entire character animation system around it.

We should be seeing character movement animations shift as they close in on each other, smoothly sliding in and out of a "melee engagement stance", in which movement is slower and more controlled. Also, characters should be able to make micro-adjustments to their positions while in the engaged stance.

Lots of 3D games have a system where when you click on a location far away from your character, he runs there, but if you click close to him, he walks in tiny controlled steps, so this should be familiar to you.

 

[Anthony Davis]

Sensuki
When I play, I seem to be able to control the battlefield mostly ok. It gets easier or harder depending on how badly I'm outnumbered and on whether I have terrain advantage. Sometimes I get too confident and try to faceroll a mob without scouting and I get facerolled in turn.

Usually though, it plays very tactically for me.


Above you ask if I think there is a RtwP game with good combat. Honestly, I can't think of one off the top of my head. That doesn't mean I didn't ENJOY the game, just the combat wasn't good.

I don't even think Darklands had good RtwP combat, and I love that game.

I'm really thinking here.

Plenty of RTS games have good combat, Starcraft, Warcraft, etc. I am stumped though when I try to think of one RtwP game that had good combat.


Out of the IE games, I definitely remember liking the combat BETTER in IWD2, but I enjoyed BG2 the most for all the other stuff.

 

[Seari]

Anthony Davis Did you ever play the BG's with SCS? Just curious, nothing to do with this topic.

 

[Sensuki]

IWD2 had good encounter design, although there was a lot of trash combat. Personally I would have preferred if Josh et al looked more at actual real-time games and how they handle combat, movement and unit stickiness instead of using mechanics clearly borrowed from turn-based (Engagement etc). Crowd control and disables are all you need, along with good targeting AI.

I know you're a turn-based guy, so it's not hard to see why you like Engagement. I do think there's a bit of "I want to make this feel more like turn based" in some of their decisions.

A lot of the time I spent testing Pillars of Eternity I focused on Pathfinding and AI issues. Often making short clips of how targeting was done in IWD:HoW. They've made targeting a lot better in the last few builds and now you can rely a lot less on engagement. In the earlier builds enemies would just target the first unit that opened combat and that's it.

 

[Anthony Davis]

Anthony Davis I think the engagement mechanic is so fundamental to the way melee combat works, that in order to really do it justice you guys needed to design the entire character animation system around it.

We should be seeing character movement animations shift as they close in each other, smoothly sliding in and out of a "melee engagement stance", in which movement is slower and more controlled. Also, characters should be able to make micro-adjustments to their positions while in the engaged stance.

Lots of 3D games have a system where when you click on a location far away from your character, he runs there, but if you click close to him, he walks in tiny controlled steps, so this should be familiar to you.

I'm familiar with it.


Thinking off the top of my head, this is how I would do it. Since your tanks are going to have shields, I would give them the ability to slam their engaged targets, one or all of them, for little to no damage, but it would push them back 5 feet or so - giving you the opportunity to move.

Other classes in the game already have a similar mechanic and the game already has the ability to "move" opponents, monks push opponents all the time.

 

[Anthony Davis]

Anthony Davis Did you ever play the BG's with SCS? Just curious, nothing to do with this topic.

I played all the IE games vanilla. The only games I have ever modded were scrolls games.

 

[Sensuki]

Thinking off the top of my head, this is how I would do it. Since your tanks are going to have shields, I would give them the ability to slam their engaged targets, one or all of them, for little to no damage, but it would push them back 5 feet or so - giving you the opportunity to move.

Other classes in the game already have a similar mechanic and the game already has the ability to "move" opponents, monks push opponents all the time.

Why do you even need an engagement system for that? Stuff like a shield bash push would be useful anyway even without engagement.

"Holy fuck that Forest Lurker just inflicted stuck on my rogue" *SHIELD BASH PUSH* L8RM8

Afflictions, Disables, Crowd Control - all you need.

 

[Anthony Davis]

Sensuki

Did you read this one?

I didn't do it through movement. I didn't click to move.

Eder had one enemy locked down. Another enemy was running past towards another character, but not TOO close to Eder. I told Eder to attack that enemy, again no move order was issued. He hit the other enemy and then he had TWO engagement lines and was engaging both enemies. He did have his Defender ability on which allows him to engage two enemies.

That's how I did it and continue to do it. Again, NOT WITH A MOVE ORDER.

I know you have a good mindset for poring over stuff in detail. Try that and see if you see what I (think) I'm seeing.


My Eder has Defender, and it's turned ON (Always on actually)
I usually give him a knockdown order to a target that I want him to intercept.
If another enemy gets *kind of* close to him, judgement call here, cause I'm not counting pixels or anything, I will tell him to knock that guy down too, which engages that target as well. Sometimes I just use a regular attack command.

I don't even try it of course if he is already engaging two opponents.

 

[Sensuki]

I didn't do it through movement. I didn't click to move.

Eder had one enemy locked down. Another enemy was running past towards another character, but not TOO close to Eder. I told Eder to attack that enemy, again no move order was issued. He hit the other enemy and then he had TWO engagement lines and was engaging both enemies. He did have his Defender ability on which allows him to engage two enemies.

That's how I did it and continue to do it. Again, NOT WITH A MOVE ORDER.

I'd have to test it but as I recall, Multiple engagements are automatic, you don't have to click enemies to snag them. They have to walk inside the 1m in game radius and you can't click to move or attack, because movement cancels all of your engagements.

Multiple engagements are also a bit buggy, they automatically engage downed animal companions as well as the kickstarter pets lol

 

[Seari]

Anthony Davis Did you ever play the BG's with SCS? Just curious, nothing to do with this topic.

I played all the IE games vanilla. The only games I have ever modded were scrolls games.

You should try replaying them with these mods, entirely different experience and much more enjoyable.

 

[Anthony Davis]

Thinking off the top of my head, this is how I would do it. Since your tanks are going to have shields, I would give them the ability to slam their engaged targets, one or all of them, for little to no damage, but it would push them back 5 feet or so - giving you the opportunity to move.

Other classes in the game already have a similar mechanic and the game already has the ability to "move" opponents, monks push opponents all the time.

Why do you even need an engagement system for that? Stuff like a shield bash push would be useful anyway even without engagement.

"Holy fuck that Forest Lurker just inflicted stuck on my rogue" *SHIELD BASH PUSH* L8RM8

Afflictions, Disables, Crowd Control - all you need.

Because *I* want to control who the enemy is attacking.

If I want Eder to stop someone before he reaches my caster, he can do it 100% of the time. No sometimes he hits the enemy but the enemy keeps on going, 100%.

Now obviously the enemy can engage TOO, and sometimes they can stop Eder first. That is where I would like to use a shield push or something to break the ENEMIES engagement and engage the enemy I want to.

 

[Anthony Davis]

I didn't do it through movement. I didn't click to move.

Eder had one enemy locked down. Another enemy was running past towards another character, but not TOO close to Eder. I told Eder to attack that enemy, again no move order was issued. He hit the other enemy and then he had TWO engagement lines and was engaging both enemies. He did have his Defender ability on which allows him to engage two enemies.

That's how I did it and continue to do it. Again, NOT WITH A MOVE ORDER.

I'd have to test it but as I recall, Multiple engagements are automatic, you don't have to click enemies to snag them. They have to walk inside the 1m in game radius and you can't click to move or attack, because movement cancels all of your engagements.

Multiple engagements are also a bit buggy, they automatically engage downed animal companions as well as the kickstarter pets lol

Yeah, maybe they were just close enough then. It's not like I was being scientific about it.

 

[Sensuki]

Because *I* want to control who the enemy is attacking.

If I want Eder to stop someone before he reaches my caster, he can do it 100% of the time. No sometimes he hits the enemy but the enemy keeps on going, 100%.

Now obviously the enemy can engage TOO, and sometimes they can stop Eder first. That is where I would like to use a shield push or something to break the ENEMIES engagement.

Yeah well that's the aggro mechanic part of it. I know that quite a few people like that part of the system. We kept it in for the No Engagement mod, we only removed the disengagement attacks.

Even in Pillars of Eternity, you can get targets to switch to Eder by moving your character that is being targeted away, this causes enemies to re-evaluate targeting and they will then switch to the closest player unit. That's how I did it in the Infinity Engine games. That's how I do it in Pillars of Eternity, without using multiple engagements. Same as microing targeted units back in an RTS game like Starcraft.

 

[Grunker]

Anthony Davis I think the engagement mechanic is so fundamental to the way melee combat works, that in order to really do it justice you guys needed to design the entire character animation system around it.

We should be seeing character movement animations shift as they close in on each other, smoothly sliding in and out of a "melee engagement stance", in which movement is slower and more controlled. Also, characters should be able to make micro-adjustments to their positions while in the engaged stance.

Lots of 3D games have a system where when you click on a location far away from your character, he runs there, but if you click close to him, he walks in tiny controlled steps, so this should be familiar to you.

If you read between the lines of your own text what you're actually saying:

"Guys. Guys. Look at what you have to do to make this work. Is it really worth it?"

 

[Infinitron]

Anthony Davis You could certainly make engagement-breaking some kind of widespread universal ability for all classes, but I think Josh might say that at some point it stops being a meaningful limitation on the dynamics of combat and just becomes rote busywork. "Ooh, you caught me! Let me click my engagement escaping ability."

And speaking of J.E. Sawyer, since you've picked up the glove and finally started a serious dialogue on the engagement mechanic, maybe it would be better if he, or at least someone who's actually on the PoE team, showed up here to discuss it? Or at least started a discussion on it somewhere?

I fed Josh a whole bunch of suggestions on how to modify engagement in the months leading up to the game's release, but other than saying "we'll make the UI more clear" he never really replied. I can understand not having enough time to do anything about it then, but now that the game is out and selling hundreds of thousands of copies, it's time to zero in on this.

If you read between the lines of your own text what you're actually saying:

"Guys. Guys. Look at what you have to do to make this work. Is it really worth it?"

Maybe. I don't think this is anything an AAA dev couldn't handle, and the idea you have about replacing disengagement attacks with characters simply slowing down while near each other isn't much different from it.

 

[Anthony Davis]

Let's take a step back here and review how the system actually works.

If a character is engaged - their CIRCLE gets twice as thick and has spikes.

The arrows show WHO is engaging WHO.

Ranged characters CANNOT engage another character. You can only be engaged in melee attacks.

What drops engagement?
There are many ways to drop engagement. Anything that interrupts a character will break engagement - this includes regular attacks. If you normal attack someone who is engaging you and you see the hit animation play on the target (who is engaging you) and your circle turns into the normal circle, you interrupted them and broke engagement.

After thinking about it more, tanks don't need shield bash or whatever, they have knockdown which breaks engagement.

There are plenty of ways to break engagement for other character classes too. ANYTHING that stuns, interrupts, knocks back, or knocks an enemy prone will break engagement with that enemy.



The system does not seem complicated to me, and it doesn't seem hard. We've received tons of feedback and emails from OTHER players who get it and LOVE it. They are vastly in the category of, "thank God, I can now protect my casters instead of kiting enemies around like a Benny Hill skit." I wanted to try and understand, but I like it. I do.

Sensuki clearly doesn't. Sensuki has a video, I can't find it now, but it's the one where he turns off engagement and talks about how much better it is because he can now move around, but then in the example he gives, he doesn't move around. He stays still and planted. I appreciate his work and dedication, but I don't agree with him on this issue.

 

[Sensuki]

Roguey, how is Tamerlane relevant to Josh other than being a goon? The system was pretty much made for him right

Sensuki has a video, I can't find it now, but it's the one where he turns off engagement and talks about how much better it is because he can now move around, but then in the example he gives, he doesn't move around. He stays still and planted. I appreciate his work and dedication, but I don't agree with him on this issue.

This is the video where I turn engagement off and then demonstrate to people that I was having an argument with on the Obsidian boards that it would play the same for them if they didn't move. I made that video for that purpose.

I have another one where I do move, but it's an IE mod demonstration vid.

One of the things I hate the most about the engagement system is you cannot move a single pixel, not even a step to the left - laughably bad system.

 

[Shevek]

Anthony Davis I think the engagement mechanic is so fundamental to the way melee combat works, that in order to really do it justice you guys needed to design the entire character animation system around it.

We should be seeing character movement animations shift as they close in on each other, smoothly sliding in and out of a "melee engagement stance", in which movement is slower and more controlled. Also, characters should be able to make micro-adjustments to their positions while in the engaged stance.

Lots of 3D games have a system where when you click on a location far away from your character, he runs there, but if you click close to him, he walks in tiny controlled steps, so this should be familiar to you.

I think the bulk of YouTube streamers getting trounced by engagement without noticing it clearly shows a need for the system to operate more visibly. Characters should indeed move and animate differently while engaged.

I do like the system though. Once you get a grip with whats happening, it plays extremely well.

 

[Zed]

I don't like how disengagement attacks hit for one million damage and the enemies don't even play an attack animation. Meanwhile regular enemy attacks hit for nothing.
This is on Hard.

 

[Kattze]

Out of the IE games, I definitely remember liking the combat BETTER in IWD2, but I enjoyed BG2 the most for all the other stuff.

I thought IWD had the superior encounter design, while IWDII had the superior character system with feats and 3e classes and abilities.

THought IWD Enhanced Edition is very good, due to being able to use the kits and spells from BGII.

 

[Infinitron]

The system does not seem complicated to me, and it doesn't seem hard. We've received tons of feedback and emails from OTHER players who get it and LOVE it. They are vastly in the category of, "thank God, I can now protect my casters instead of kiting enemies around like a Benny Hill skit." I wanted to try and understand, but I like it. I do.

Obviously, it's great to engage, but it's not as great when you're the one being engaged. You need to look at it from both directions.

With no animation system to support it - characters visibly changing their stance as they approach each other, telegraphing to the player that he'd better step off quickly - movement in combat becomes a pixel-perfect precision affair. "SHIT, I was running here but accidentally moved one pixel too close to that guy, now I'm stuck in place." Don't you see how that could be really silly?

 

[Hobo Elf]

It's... different. It changes the dynamic of combat completely than what it was in the IE games, but I'm not bothered by the fact it is different. I'm open to change. I'm only 9 hours in and haven't seen many different encounters so I won't see how the system blossoms, but I do have a few issues that I enountered pretty early on. Going into that Church dungeon with the Shades and Shadows was a pain. While my Paladin tries to engage the enemy, they are free to teleport to the back row without any kind of disengagement penalties and wreck my squishies. There wasn't anything I could do to counter it. My tank had to disengage his current target, suffer a big hit and walk up to the enemy ripping through my casters and try to salvage the situation, but that was little comfort since he has no taunt ability and running away with my squishies only results in a instant KO. The disadvantage I was put in this situation was so huge that no kind of tactic was able to save me. All I could do was pray to RNGesus and hope that the enemies got crap attack rolls and don't kill me.
Also, someone mentioned ITT already that the combat encounters are more or less resolved with how you intitiate the combat encounter. I agree. If it's a good initiate, you got it, if not, you wipe. I find myself reloading the fights within 3 seconds after initiation because that's enough time for me to see if I'll have a chance or not.

But I'm not liking or disliking the system yet. It's only one annoying enemy type. I'm approaching the system with an open mind and waiting and see how it evolves in the later parts of the game.

 

[Sensuki]

If it's a good initiate, you got it, if not, you wipe.

The game has always played this way (although not always wipe, I just reload if a character goes down, because that's a failure to me).

 

[Bubbles]

The disadvantage I was put in this situation was so huge that no kind of tactic was able to save me. All I could do was pray to RNGesus and hope that the enemies got crap attack rolls and don't kill me.

You could have put armor and shields on your casters and fought the battle more slowly, but with greatly reduced risk. And saved up debuffs, stuns, etc. for those times when the shadows teleport into your backrow.

 

[Sensuki]

And have them do nothing? Deflection isn't worth that much if your Deflection is already low. Not excusing him but doing that on casters is just plain bad at all times.

I would position the backline characters closer to the frontline vs spectres/shades etc and disable them.