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Better/More Reactive Multiplayer Pausing

BISHDPBISHDP Member Posts: 19
in Archive (Feature Requests)
When playing a MP game, pausing has a large delay and is sometimes unresponsive. Often, the players must hit the pause key multiple times in order to pause the game. This slows player reaction times and can allow enemies to get the jump on the PCs. This is especially devistating if said enemy is a mage. Mages have always had a ridiculous amount of protection spells that all pop off together at the start of a battle. And I won't go into when they use invisibility right off the bat. If you are fast enough, you can sometimes hit the mage with a quick spell like Larlochs Minor Drain and stop them from buffing themselves. This is nigh on immpossible in MP and makes the game so mush harder. Now, while I love how hard this game is and that it is not like newer games that pull all of their punches, single player games have a great advantage over MP games because they can pause the game quickly.

While Auto-pause eliminates some of this issue, it does not always engage after a conversation. Many of the harder mages in the game talk to you first and then attack, rendering the auto-pause useless. This has been an issue since vanilla BG. I would like to see, if at all possible, a reactive, responsive pause in Multiplayer. I do not know if this is hard coded ro a side effect of the inifinity engine in multiplayer but it would be great if this could be addressed.

As always, I love the work you guys are doing and greatly appreciate the hard work you all have put in to give Baldur's Gate addidicts like me the oppurtunity to play this game again. Thank you and have a great holiday season.

Comments

  • thedemoninsidethedemoninside Member Posts: 188
    I was just thinking of how annoying this is last night. I literally have to rapid press the space key 3 times to make sure it pauses. I thought there was something wrong with my keyboard.

    I think you brought up 2 issues. It needs to work on the first press, and auto pause needs to work if a red circled npc initiates dialogue with you immediately after conversation has finished.
  • BISHDPBISHDP Member Posts: 19
    Agreed. Example below.
    I recently fought the Adoy fight for Neera's quest in both single and multi player. In my single player run, the fight was difficult but Ekandor only got two to three spells off as I was able to disrupt his protections in the start of the fight. I ended up winning with no losses, though some major injuries due to those irratating Thayan Bodyguards (Seriously, they just hate wizards and ignore the heavily armored fighters that are wailing on them).

    In my Multiplayer run with my brother, we had to reload three times(mostly due to Neera dying) and only stopped Ekandor from casting freely once. My brother got lucky with a silence spell and Ekandor failed his save. But that was after his protections were full and he had caused some serious damage to us. And all because it did not auto-pause when the conversation ended and it takes so long to pause in Multiplayer that any emeny wizard has a huge jump on your casters by the time you do pause it.
  • KirkorKirkor Member Posts: 700
    I think this delay is a "feature" in case both (or more) players push space at the same time.

    IMO you should be able to set how big is the delay in options...
  • BISHDPBISHDP Member Posts: 19
    They already have the permissions to allow or disallow individual players to pause the game. Most games I have played, the host sets it so that the spellcasters, the ones who have the most to micromanage, can pause. It has always worked out well. Setting the delay would be an exceptable fix action but I can't see myself or those I play with using anything other than no delay.
  • zealerzealer Member Posts: 30
    edited December 2012
    @Kirkor @BISHDP yeah it can't be a feature, otherwise it would be just a delay instead of not working at all. It makes no sense to have a delay either, you can just put someone in charge of the pausing or making it so there is a countdown to unpause the game like Dota 2 for example.

    Does this need to be posted on the "Fixing Multiplayer" thread or will just calling @Nathan work?
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