Drawing the first shot

[bobzter]

When the battle starts the NPCs start running around foolishly while the enemies fire at you right away. Sometimes even when you micro manage them while paused. Is there any way to make then engage right away too? This is the most annoying aspect of the game play I did not figure yet... thanks

[Retribution]

If you pause and set them to attack the enemy, they will do so as fast as they can. I know it's slow, Bioware's fixing that for Dragon Age 2.

[bobzter]

I'm not referring to the amount of time it takes to cast a buff. It's fare to take as long as the enemy. I'm asking if there's a way to stop the party from moving around before they start to engage. They dance for about two precious seconds before deciding to fight - enough to the enemy mage decide the fate of the battle.

[Thandal]

I'm not referring to the amount of time it takes to cast a buff. It's fare to take as long as the enemy. I'm asking if there's a way to stop the party from moving around before they start to engage. They dance for about two precious seconds before deciding to fight - enough to the enemy mage decide the fate of the battle.

That "dance" is the game engine trying to implement the program instructions to "go attack the designated target". It is exactly what several of the BioWare lead devs have mentioned in interviews and forum posts as "a key improvement being made in DA2". Your frustration (x1000s!) is what's driving the change.

[bobzter]

So... I take it there's no way to overcome that behavior other than trying to pause every further fraction of second to redirect all the characters over and over again - for the game ignores your instructions if they are not issued at the designed millisecond "GO" time. Does not make any sense to think buying the the next game as a solution for this one. At least it´s good to know beforehand.

[Thandal]

Essentially, you identify an initial action ("Attack", "Buff", "Cast", etc.) for each of your party members. Then you have to wait for the programming to "process" that action before you can assign a different one. They don't have to complete the first one, (you can re-target or change spells before they execute) but they have to finish the prepatory elements before moving on to the new/next one.

 

If it's critical to what I'm doing, I generally wait for the first on-screen evidence that my party has "registered" the attack (enemies get the red ring, some kind of movement or gestures by my team) THEN I tune their individual responses as I want. I lose maybe a second-or-so up front, but gain whatever time would otherwise be lost in their behaving absurdly (mostly by getting in each other's way! Sometimes they look like "The Three Stooges" being ridiculous, instead of being, as Zev puts it, "Ridiculously Awesome!" :P )

[bobzter]

I am the one resembling the stooge when to master a game (otherwise great) is a matter of hitting the pause key like it was the infamously old arcade game "Decathlon"

[VGfallout]

its certainly possible to change the "geth-like networked ai" system which would make party members engage in preemptive strikes or independent auto targeting, but it wouldn't be as beneficial as one would expect if this were the case. it would probably (at least as far as my magical, self proclaimed psychic ability can foresee) result in the occasional situation we experience now, which is where a party member wanders off in the distance chasing some critter-ranking/regular npc to the end of the earth, or running alone into the eye of the storm/enemy mob, but about 5x more often

 

on top of that, the tactics menu/selection would have to be re-calibrated on a system wide level, everything from enemies to friendlies. it could very well be that they may have tried this initially & concluded that the lemming/follow the leader approach was the most efficient in the long run for numerous reasons

 

another thing that wouldnt surprise me were this system to be implemented tomorrow, is the engine Crashing on initial "combat activation", having to calculate target prioritization for all 4 party members & naturally enemy npcs as well, on the fly as soon as combat mode begins. so its somewhat predictable after an hour of running the game & the engine losing its grasp on cached/recyclable resources, plus the wear & tear that "sustainable" buffs cause when transitioning from area to area, or enter/leave conversation, or who knows what else, that initiating combat in Key "landmark battle stages/areas" such as orzammar deep roads bridge/legion encounter, certain denerim random travel encounters/quest battles etc would result in most enjoyable crash (i bet white falcon encounter with captain of guard would be an insta-crash without a fresh load)

 

please keep in mind my friend, that i could be absolutely wrong about everything i just said, & simply have a strong belief in an unfounded, 100% delusional belief that sorta sounds like there is experience behind it making it easier to believe while absolutely ignorant to the truth, never trust what anyone says, ever unless faced with physical irrefutable evidence

 

i just dont want to be that moron that said "no, impossible, can't" in such a way to where its convincing which is often the case everywhere and in everything. in fact, half of the methods for any sort of.... "production" i have adopted into my daily activities was and still is shot-down in "channels" considered reputable, knowledgeable/trust worthy

 

reason why i said all of that is because skimming through the blocks of text above, it almost sounds like im lecturing against this - when in fact its Always bothered me & i would love nothing more than to at least have the option of self sufficient party members, how many times has that "force-field prison) spell nabbed me, forcing me to watch my party members stand idle as i take the first 4 or 5 hits (resulting in death sometimes) until i am Directly attacked for their AI to jump start

 

so im supporting your topic/concern/request, though as always state it in such a way to where it looks like im trying to preach or something

 

hey you know what?

time for bed ;]

edited - spell checked to pretend im some sorta intellectual that knows how to spell ;]

Edited August 15, 2010 by veteran_gamer

[bobzter]

You've lost me somewhere in there.

 

How hard is it to code any of these:

- the Auto-Pause is triggered exactly to the point when both sides can engage right away

- the interface accept actions to be queued before the battle begins (it's so bad to the point where you see in the screen the ordered action being ignored and replaced with "moving", then the NPC goes hell knows where)

 

I wonder if Bioware does it on purpose just to make you mad, have you ever noticed the character who's got "Cone of Cold" seems to be always behind the rest of the party?

[bobzter]

Sorry for the ranting...

 

It seems the the whole thing can be fixed with the mod ADVANCED TACTICS ( http://www.dragonagenexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=181 )

 

Notice the line in AI section:

(v2.9) Fix the auto pause bug. The delay between entering combat and auto pause has been deleted.

 

So far my testing showed this mod fix the "moving around", "precise auto-pause" and the "ignoring queue orders" altogether! :)

Shiver my timbers if Bioware does not hire this guy at least for the quality assurance testing team!