Style of Battling

Remove all ads!

I was just wondering how people prefer to play the various battles. What sorts of feedbacks and autopauses do y´all use. None, play them realtime or turnbased ?
I´d like to play them battles as realtime as possible without hitting the spacebar too frequently.

 

Autopause (Enemy sightings & traps).

Feedback (Default)

I play realtime, and am happy my spacebar works..well sometimes

[This message has been edited by Naer Dhal (edited November 20, 2001).]

 

I use manual pausing, and use it often! I carefully assaing everyone's role in a battle, as well as check all the HP and such. Feedback is on default.

Ara
(Still a Gibberling... Hmm...)

 

Always Auto pause whe enenmy seen.
Always Feedback on everything


Rest of the pausing depends on my mood;

If I want reckless and frenzy firefights I don't pause. Real battle cry mode, Where everything can happen.

If I actually want my characters to survive and do their best, not chasing high speed action but prefer carefull planning and the joy of it working; I pause almost all the time, manually.

If the encounters are overly easy I just use Party AI on.

That should Cover it.

 

Hi,

I play in more of a turn based style and only play full realtime during easy battles.

Autopause on for:
enemy sighted,
detect traps,
spell cast, (if playing TOB and am using improved alcarity)
character injured,

feedback on everything.

If difficult foes I micromanage and use manual pause alot, sometimes i'll turn some of the other pause options as well, if easy foes I turn on AI and let the characters play through.

Cheers,

WittyNewt

[This message has been edited by wittynewt (edited November 20, 2001).]

 

AutoPause: Enemy Sighted, Find Traps, Spell Cast (I like to micromanage my spells

Feedback: Minimum

I pause manually about every 5 seconds, to check up on people. I almost always have AI On, unless i'm gonna backstab someone.

 

I only pause manually, but I do it a lot... At least in the hard battles, when the 'guard'-function or a 'brute force'-script won't be enough.

 

Since I refuse to use AI and must dictate all my party members actions, pausing is essential for me.

Autopause enemy sighted, trap found, and when a character runs out of ammo. All feedback.

 

Generally: I pause a lot to keep my party under control - since I always have AI on and use the default skripts for the NPCs I have to take care that they concentrate on the most dangerous enemies.
I prefer ballanced parties: imo my best aproach was my current goody party: cavalier, archer, swashbuckler-mage, Mazzy - later joined by Imoen (and in ToB by Sarevok), I like to have a core of fighters.

I also use skripts, especially fighter 1 for paladins (very impressive when they have boots of speed) ... I, however, have to disable it when using "turn undead"

I *always* scout a dungeon/ forrest area with a thief or ranger first. When I encounter enemies I withdraw and form combat teams for their specific tasks:

When dealing with the demon knights for example, I tasked one melee fighter and one archer fighting one of them each (avoiding to fight more than two of them at the same time). This tactic is very effective on most enemies since the swarm of arrows interrupts spellcasting and weakens defences like miror image, stone- or ironskins effectively. The imo perfect combination here is to team a cavalier and an archer.

When I have a char capable of backstabbing I use him to eliminate enemy mages. When I have traps I use them to cover my weak spots (when I have a battle formation in open ground and I can place my mages behind this cover) or to set ambushes.
Since my chars tend to have high int I use my party tactically - generally preferring to lure enemies into ambushes when possible. An ambush can consist of two guarding archers, a cloudkill, a (maybe delayed) fireball (nice when your decoy has the red dragon scale)c or a couple of traps. However, for a cavalier there is always a rewarding opportunity for a lancelotian frontal attack

When I have a group of enemies I usually concentrate fire (all ranged weapons and the melee fighter !) on the single most dangerous spellcaster or fighter, after that is accomplished I care about the rest. When facing a number of archers I draw them into melee when I can't disable (or better kill) them with an appropiate spell.

I usually use my mages in a supportive rather than offensive function, concentrating them on spells like spook, horror, emotion, chaos, glitterdust and deafness. Ray of enfeeblement is also very effective to weaken enemy fighters. Mages are imo also one of the most effective class to counter enemy mages and their protections - mages, just like thieves, clerics and druids, are force multipliers in a fighter party.

A very effective tactic for a cavalier (thanks to his immunity to poison ) is to cast a cloudkill on the enemies and send the cavalier in it to melee the enemies (and to make them stay there where the cloud is) - then I let I use the rest of the parties ranged weaponsto fire at every enemy inside. I used this with excellent effect on numerous tough enemies like dragons and mindflayers.

 

how do you set it so it automatically pauses the game for you when you see a trap/enemy/spell?

 

Go to gameplay options and in the middle of that screen, IIRC are two thin bars, one feedback and one autopause. Autopause brings up its own screen where you get choices on when you want the game to autopause. You may have missed it because it is a thin bar you have to click to get to this screen.

 

Defalt autopause and full feedback.

Manual pause when micromanaging spellcasting, switching weapon or using items, and reading feedbackbox.

 

What sort of surprises me, is that most of the replies include the use of A.I. Only Big B. doesn´t use it. For myself, I prefer to battle and play without the use of A.I. because I feel that using it, hollows the R. in RPG. (Thats Role , not Roll ) Are there more people out there feeling that way about using A.I. in battles ?

 

I have autopause set on Enemy Sighted, Character Attacked and End of Round. I think that gives enough time to be able to manage a group of six people properly, particularly for spellcasters and people who are taking lots of damage. I sometimes use scripts for the fighters (as I don't want to have to keep directing them to kill the next enemy), but I never do for spellcasters, as I often find the script uses spells in a situation where I think the fighters can handle everything and I want to keep my spells for other battles.

 

Asmodeus: using AI means to me that I give those chars commands through scripts, so it's still rpg. And there is nothing worse that discovering that in the middle of carnage, there is your fighter, all beefed up, armed to teeth, watching how your mage gets slaughtered.

AI scripts: on for fighters (standard most times), on for archeer (ranged), on for thieves (scout).
Ai off: if I need to heal scouting thief, if I want to wait for monsters while softening them up wit malison, feeblemind, if I have trap set up and want to lead them into it.

I prefer tactical type of playing, using strenghts of my chars.
And contrary to Ragusa, I try to take out all those annoying weaker enemies instead of concentrating on mage/main enemy fighter. Depending on whom I'm fighting, I'll make them busy with few summons, or if its mage have a mae-mage duel from way behind. I've acctualy done so few times, when facing mage, after I kill its help, I pull back everyone, turn AI off and have magic duel. Kinda fun, especially if you have abjurer as your party-mage

Auto-pause: target gone

 

I am impressed BTA.

*imagines BTA looking closely at the screen, while roaming a dungeon with a thief, itching to hammer down the spacebar and break the creepy silence around him if a trap is detected. Slow reflexes could mean death... Breathtaking*

I guess AI is for those who either
played too much(me).
Got Godlike character.
Like the idea of roleplaying(taking care of one personHimself/herself)
Are just plain lazy.

 

I never use A.I. either. I like giving everyone indivdual orders and not having the computer do anything for me, it makes victory all the sweeter. I don't use autopauses either, they are annoying as hell. I'm usually so suprised when it automaticly pauses that I accidently unpause it! If you see an enemy they will see you as well and attack you. So I just pause when I see that on the dialog bar.

As for party strategys I usually try to have a traditional balanced party of 2 warriors(any type), a priest, a mage, a theif, and one of my choice. Since in BG2 many of the NPCs are dual classed or multi classed I usually end up with a versitile party.

I don't usually focus on one perticular enemy at a time. I have everyone pick a man, unless I'm fighting some kind of boss, then I have everyone pound on him. I think area affect spells like cloud kill are boring.

Most people probably don't use these, but I really like charm spells. They are very effective, and can easily turn the side of a battle, especially if you manage to charm their fighters. Sure, sure, they don't work on bosses or very powerful characters but if they did it would make the game too easy.

A single sequenced flame arrow or something similar can take out a low to medium powered enemy so I use them a lot.

After I get BG2 back I'll probably remember a lot more of my strategys.

 

I play like this: No autopausing, I like to react to things as they happen. I only use the spacebar when there's a certain spell I want to have casted. Also here's the scripts I use for each character:

PC (Paladin Melee)
Minsc (Spellcaster Defend)
Anomen (Paladin Melee)
Jaheira (Druid Offensive/Defensive)
Nalia (Wizard Aggresive)
Jan (Wizard Aggresive)

I let the NPC's battle as their scripts determine, and only give them specific orders when they need to do something different. I control my PC personally, but keep a melee script on him so he attacks another enemy after his current one is dead instead of standing there awaiting orders; usually I'm busy jumping from NPC to NPC giving out spellcasting orders, and can't keep an eye on him all the time.

 

Sarevok, and all interested,
Couldn´t agree with you more, not using AI, especially on the more though battles adds a little more depth to all the characters in your party. It´s not that I feel the scripts are not good or something like that, I think they´re just to shallow to reflect a characters behavior.
I can see you think, what should be so complicated about a character´s behaviour during a battle ?
For instance, when there´s a battle involving natural animals, I never use Minsc or Jaheira plainly attacking them. In that case I would try to charm the animals which should be more according to their characters and class. I doubt that such minor details are involved in any script.
Secondly, not using AI, and on that point I mostly agree with Sarevok, makes victory all the more sweeter. Nothing better then hacking a couple of dozen orcs and realizing you´ve done it alle by yourself and according to your characters behaviour.

Autopausing is in my opinion indeed more for the more lazy players among us,( Sorry A.A., , but you brought it up yourself). Not autopausing adds again depth to especially the creepy atmosphere here and there. It gives you that paranoid feeling and to semi-quote Anomen ``Watch your backs`´ or something like that. I never seem to remember his quotes because he never seems to lasts long among my rank`s.
But seriously, I feel that not using autopause makes the game in a whole more interesting.
1) Not using `Pause on enemy-sighted´ makes you walk around more carefully, prying your eyes like a madman (or woman, apologies to our feminin-fellow-gamers) on every moving pixel on the screen. Because of this I tend to hate the circles around Npc´s, making everything so damn visible.
2) Not using `Pause on enemy destroyed`, keeps you more focused on the battle, making it thus much more exciting. Seeing your lvl trizillion figther doing nohing while your lvl 0 mage is being hacked to kingdom come by a bunch of kobolds is not an error within the game, it´s your lack of strategy....
3) Not using `Pause on character injured´ makes your again more focused on battle and this keeps the game more exciting.
For now I can´t seem to remember what else pause-related topics there are within BGII, cause I never use them.

The using of the spacebar is again an issue that can be discussed in length. I tend to use it as little as possible, again for a more realistic and breathtaking battle. Try it once, load a saved game with a though battle and try to conquer your enemy without using the spacebar, it sweetens your victory a whole lot more. (And afterwards notice the drops of sweat running down from your forehead, just like you´ve fought Firkraag on your own !)

It´s not that I disagree with people that use AI or any kind of autopause, go ahead, play the game in a way you like most. But he, this is a discussion-board after all...

I not only use these selfapplied rules to BGII but also to BGI and especially to IWD where all the PC´s in the party are mine to make and all of them are preceded with a little short history note, just to make it more interesting and add a little R to RPG.
(No, no ones in the party has had their parents killed by an orc-tribe.... I try, being a DM for 16 years now for AD&D, Warhammer and Call of Cthulhu, to create a little original depth)

Thanks all for your comments.
Asmo.

`One kind word can warm three winter months.`

Chinese proverb



[This message has been edited by Asmodeus (edited November 22, 2001).]