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

[Athelas]

I think they do more damage and they play an Interrupt animation? In the IGN video, Calisca almost dropped to 0 stamina when she got hit by disengagement from the wolves.

 

[Sensuki]

Nah what happens is when you get hit by a disengagement attack it's supposed to stop your movement and play a "long interrupt". The interrupt was definitely longer than the normal one, but it didn't look like it stopped the movement.

It's probably going to be one of those things that while different on paper, ends up working pretty much the same as the thing it's trying to differ from. Currently it seems like an AoO not triggered by movement, but moving out of a specific radius.

 

[Lhynn]

derp

There are no motherfucking classes in fucking D:OS, there are certain archetypes you can choose to follow, but there are no classes, get that tru your thick skull. If the characters were to have a class itd be source hunters, and its a completely flexible one with only a single class skill, the ability to shoot balls out of staffs.

 

[Grunker]

It's probably going to be one of those things that while different on paper, ends up working pretty much the same as the thing it's trying to differ from.

Fucking just do the lock or something. If we end up with something approaching NWN2, it can really fuck up the combat.

 

[Ninjerk]

You guys think that combat was too FAST?

 

[Sensuki]

Yes, IF it wants to feel like the IE games.

 

[nikolokolus]

You guys think that combat was too FAST?

I think the animations feel a little floaty and "off." How much of this is because it's in a beta state and needs another pass or two remains to be seen. I think they're close though.

 

[Roguey]

Animations in RTT-style things will never not feel floaty.

There was a disengament attack yes, but it look like it worked exactly like an AoO. As in, NWN2 dumbfuckery. I thought disengagement was changed so that when you were engaged, you were basically locked in combat unless you used an ability to escape.

You don't need an ability to escape. You can use abilities to escape without provoking a disengagement attack, but anyone is free to try to move out of it at the risk of getting hit by an attack with a greater chance to hit.

The circles aren't implemented yet either.

 

[Grunker]

Animations in RTT-style things will never not feel floaty.

There was a disengament attack yes, but it look like it worked exactly like an AoO. As in, NWN2 dumbfuckery. I thought disengagement was changed so that when you were engaged, you were basically locked in combat unless you used an ability to escape.

You don't need an ability to escape..

I know. That's what I am saying sucks. What's preventing NWN2 hellish AoO storms?

 

[Roguey]

I know. That's what I am saying sucks. What's preventing NWN2 hellish AoO storms?

Don't move your character if you're engaged. "Pause on engagement" seems like an obvious autopause option. Repasting what he wrote last year

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. In the Infinity Engine games, melee characters could be quite powerful in toe-to-toe combat, but many opponents found ways to foil those characters with little difficulty. Fast characters could easily rush around a slower melee character with impunity and ranged characters could backpedal perpetually out of reach.

If you're familiar with D&D 3E/3.5/4E/Pathfinder's attack of opportunity mechanics, Project Eternity's melee engagement fills a similar role by making melee combatants "sticky". Coming near a melee combatant means being drawn into Engagement with him or her, a state that can be risky to get out of.

Here's how it works: when two opposed combatants come near each other and one of them a) has a melee weapon equipped b) is not moving and c) is not currently at his or her maximum limit of engagement targets (the standard is 1), the other character will be Engaged.

When an opponent is Engaged by an attacker, moving any significant distance away from the attacker will provoke a Disengagement Attack. A Disengagement Attack has an inherent Accuracy bonus, does significantly more damage than a standard attack, and will call a hit reaction animation while momentarily stopping the character's movement.

When it's initiated, a Disengagement Attack automatically breaks Engagement on the target, but if the target is also the attacker's current melee target, the attacker will typically be able to re-establish Engagement before the target can move farther away. In this manner, melee combatants, especially ones that have high Accuracy and damage per hit, have a solid mechanic for keeping enemies close to them -- or making the cost of escape extremely expensive.

Of course, there are other ways to end Engagement. If the attacker switches to a non-melee weapon or performs a non-melee-based action, Engagement immediately ends. If the attacker moves away from their Engagement targets, is paralyzed, knocked down, or otherwise prevented from maintaining a threat, Engagement will also immediately end. If the attacker has a limited number of Engagement targets (as most do) and switches his or her attack focus to a different character, Engagement immediately ends.

We believe that Engagement can give AI a clear "decision point" where they can evaluate the threat of their new status and choose the appropriate course of action. For player-controlled characters, it makes melee enemies more potent threats and presents players with tactical challenges to solve.

 

[Sensuki]

I know you mean Real-time Tactical, but most DotA 2 attack animations aren't floaty, particularly ones like Omniknight, Axe, Abaddon. Their animations have some really nice weight to them. Warcraft 3 unit attack animations were also nice.

 

[Zombra]

You guys think that combat was too FAST?

I can't look at it again right now (at work), but I do remember thinking there was a lot of standing around punctuated by goofily quick attack animations. Standing stock still for 2 seconds and then unleashing a 1/3 second sword swing doesn't look great. I'd rather see a 2-second attack animation with a 1/3 second downtime between maneuvers. If characters attack at different rates because of stats, then speed up the animation for faster characters, but don't just have them standing there waiting around to do an occasional lightning-quick strike.

 

[Sensuki]

Yeah, thing is they've tried to replicate what combat looks like in Icewind Dale 1 & 2 - which isn't particularly fantastic.

The IWD team didn't like the Baldur's Gate fake animations and in removing them they also removed the combat idle that went along with them

The guy who wrote TobEx was able to remove them while keeping the combat idle in BG2 (poor coding iwd team ).

Way back when I did my first Josh interview in 2012, I brought up the Warcraft 3 system because it had nice animations in a real-time environment. For that they used three animations for each attack - frontswing, attack and backswing, so that there was no "wait time" between attacks, but attack swings were pretty long and were sped up by IAS (Increased Attack Speed) which sped up all three of the animations by the same amount in %.

If they fix the combat idle and make it look more active, it should look okay. I actually have an answer about this in my upcoming interview (which Bee will put up after the Unrest review is unpinned).

 

[Roguey]

I know you mean Real-time Tactical, but most DotA 2 attack animations aren't floaty, particularly ones like Omniknight, Axe, Abaddon. Their animations have some really nice weight to them. Warcraft 3 unit attack animations were also nice.

I looked these up and nah.

 

[Grunker]

I know. That's what I am saying sucks. What's preventing NWN2 hellish AoO storms?

Don't move your character if you're engaged.

So basically, you're saying he's content with NWN2's AoO problems? Sounds like bullshit to me.

 

[Infinitron]

Nah what happens is when you get hit by a disengagement attack it's supposed to stop your movement and play a "long interrupt". The interrupt was definitely longer than the normal one, but it didn't look like it stopped the movement.

It's probably going to be one of those things that while different on paper, ends up working pretty much the same as the thing it's trying to differ from. Currently it seems like an AoO not triggered by movement, but moving out of a specific radius.

Or they might not be done implementing it yet.

I'm not sure if the game is too fast; faster than BG1, certainly, but weren't the games after that sped up? And then you have people who increase the games' speed even more in the options menu. It doesn't like slow speed is something most people particularly liked about the IE games.

 

[Grunker]

most people

where did you gather this intriguing data

 

[Roguey]

Josh did say he's not interested in replicating the "one-attack-per-round" feel of early D&D. Combat feels better when you have 3 attacks per 2 rounds.

So basically, you're saying he's content with NWN2's AoO problems? Sounds like bullshit to me.

I don't really see how this is equivalent to NWN2.

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.
...
In the last example, melee enemies moving through melee enemies, moving characters will not trigger Engagement. If two opposed melee fighters rush by each other and they're not stopping to attack, they won't engage the other. Also, if a fighter is not in his or her Defensive mode, he is likely to only be capable of engaging a single target at a time (his or her current melee target). If some of those melee enemies are targeting someone rushing past, they will stop to attack and that will result in Engagement, but that's a typical and intentional result.

But this is all ancient news.

 

[Volourn]

"In 2nd edition of DnD it totally is (combat)."

No.

 

[racofer]

I'm confident that this game will live up to Obsidian standards.

 

[Sensuki]

I know you mean Real-time Tactical, but most DotA 2 attack animations aren't floaty, particularly ones like Omniknight, Axe, Abaddon. Their animations have some really nice weight to them. Warcraft 3 unit attack animations were also nice.

I looked these up and nah.

You must have a different definition of floaty to me, kindly give me an example of a non-floaty attack animation.

I'm not sure if the game is too fast; faster than BG1, certainly, but weren't the games after that sped up? And then you have people who increase the games' speed even more in the options menu. It doesn't like slow speed is something most people particularly liked about the IE games.

I played all the IE games at 40 FPS. Not because it was faster, but because everything looked smoother, without being too fast.

 

[Grunker]

Josh did say he's not interested in replicating the "one-attack-per-round" feel of early D&D. Combat feels better when you have 3 attacks per 2 rounds.

So basically, you're saying he's content with NWN2's AoO problems? Sounds like bullshit to me.

I don't really see how this is equivalent to NWN2.

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.
...
In the last example, melee enemies moving through melee enemies, moving characters will not trigger Engagement. If two opposed melee fighters rush by each other and they're not stopping to attack, they won't engage the other. Also, if a fighter is not in his or her Defensive mode, he is likely to only be capable of engaging a single target at a time (his or her current melee target). If some of those melee enemies are targeting someone rushing past, they will stop to attack and that will result in Engagement, but that's a typical and intentional result.

But this is all ancient news.

I know it is, but when I look at all this talk in actual action, there is nothing that says to me "no, pathfinding will never run you past three enemies generating half a billion AoOs." Looking at it in the video, the system looks every bit as obnoxious as the merge of aoos first was in NWN2.

 

[Infinitron]

Roguey The advantage of melee engagement was supposed to be that your character becomes physically stopped/"locked in place" BEFORE he gets hit with a disengagement attack. He was supposed to be attacked only if he moved again AFTER being stopped in place.

If you don't get locked in place BEFORE the disengagement attack, but you do get locked in place AFTER the first attack, then that's not too awful. But if you don't get locked in place ever, then you can run around and suffer AoO storms.

 

[Roguey]

You must have a different definition of floaty to me, kindly give me an example of a non-floaty attack animation.

It's all wire-fu to me.

I know it is, but when I look at all this talk in actual action, there is nothing that says to me "no, pathfinding will never run you past three enemies generating half a billion AoOs."

You won't because the first one will immediately engage you and then you'll stop (unless you're wild sprinting as a barbarian in which case you can in fact trigger a bunch of aoos but they won't physically interrupt you).

Looking at it in the video, the system looks every bit as obnoxious as the merge of aoos first was in NWN2.

The guy intentionally decided to move the character away from an engaged enemy and got slapped. I don't see the obnoxiousness.

 

[Sensuki]

OH Grunker, I forgot. Engagement only works when a unit is attacking you/targeting you. If you're being targeted by three guys and you try and run, they'll all get an "AoO". If they're not currently targeting you, they won't.

So like you run past 5 enemies, if they're all currently occupied attacking other people, no disengagement attacks.

Fighters can engage multiple enemies though.

It's all wire-fu to me.

That's not an answer. Surely you've played a game that doesn't have floaty attack animations. Don't go doing an Excidium where you make a statement and then just essentially say "because" when questioned about it.