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Do you pause during battles?

thesoloerthesoloer Member Posts: 77
edited May 2014 in General Discussion (Spoiler Warning!)
Ever since I discovered that pausing interrupted mages' spellcasting in BG1, I've been paranoid about pausing during battles and eventually got into the habit of not pausing at all during battles. It adds an extra little layer of challenge I think.
  1. Do you pause during battles?117 votes
    1. Yes
      98.29%
    2. No
        1.71%
«13

Comments

  • BlackravenBlackraven Member Posts: 3,486
    I pause a lot, especially when playing a party. Never noticed in my games that pausing would interrupt enemy mages' spellcasting. I think I'd be pretty sloppy if I didn't allow myself to pause.
  • AdulAdul Member Posts: 2,002
    I haven't really noticed pausing interrupting enemy spells in BG2, or if it does it must be very rare. I know it was a very easily exploitable issue in vanilla BG1, but I think the bug has been corrected in BG2 and therefore also in both enhanced editions.
  • GoturalGotural Member Posts: 1,229
    Who don't ?
  • winterswinters Member Posts: 252
    I'm currently playing BGEE for the First. Time. Ever without an arcane spellcaster (or two. Or four) and that says a lot about my typical pausing frequency, I think :] This thing mentioned in the first post is definitely a bug.
  • TheElfTheElf Member Posts: 798
    I do sometimes when I need to to avoid death and stuff, but actually once I got used to the mechanics I found I liked playing the battles as real time as possible better. It keeps me on my toys.
  • FrondFrond Member Posts: 121
    I pause practically every round. Dont think I could play without it now.
  • O_BruceO_Bruce Member Posts: 2,790
    Yes. I usually play full party, so I need time to give them orders. Plus, sometimes I need to think what move would be the best in the situation my party is in.
  • meaglothmeagloth Member Posts: 3,806
    Um, I don't think pausing interrupts spell casting. If you're not pausing in battle then you're making it really hard for yourself, for no reason.
  • jackjackjackjack Member Posts: 3,251
    Uh, yeah, I definitely do. Additionally, I find myself attempting to pause in every other game I play. I don't think I would enjoy this game half as much without pause and autopause.
  • ApocryphaApocrypha Member Posts: 105
    Not to interrupt enemy spellcasting (or at least not intentionally), but yeah, I do. It's based off a PnP system where you can think about what you're going to do before acting. There's nothing wrong with pausing to do that.
  • thesoloerthesoloer Member Posts: 77
    meagloth said:

    If you're not pausing in battle then you're making it really hard for yourself, for no reason.

    Well isn't that the point of challenging yourself? :P I'm also a big fan of twitch-based gameplay like Super Mario, so making BG 100% real-time is kind of exciting for me.
  • CoM_SolaufeinCoM_Solaufein Member Posts: 2,606
    Indeed I pause. I'm not about to let the "smart" AI do all of the thinking. I want my mages and clerics to cast the spells that I want them to cast in a situation. If I'm fighting multiple enemies, I stop and force them to attack the strongest enemy.
  • TwaniTwani Member Posts: 640
    In my current playthrough, I have three arcane casters, and I'm about to pick up a fourth.

    There is a *lot* of pausing going on.
  • meaglothmeagloth Member Posts: 3,806
    edited May 2014
    thesoloer said:

    meagloth said:

    If you're not pausing in battle then you're making it really hard for yourself, for no reason.

    Well isn't that the point of challenging yourself? :P I'm also a big fan of twitch-based gameplay like Super Mario, so making BG 100% real-time is kind of exciting for me.
    If it suits you, I guess. Though you must not play with a full party. Getting through SoA would be almost impossible.
  • SweetMagooMagoodleSweetMagooMagoodle Member Posts: 40
    BG is a strategy game to me -- I pause every time I make a move in chess. In BG, too.
  • thesoloerthesoloer Member Posts: 77
    I never run a full party because that's just too much to manage for me. At the most I have a trio, but I've been soloing a lot lately.
  • Eadwyn_G8keeperEadwyn_G8keeper Member Posts: 541
    edited May 2014
    But of course... One of my favorite uses for Pause is with my Fighter/Mage getting off a quick-shot with Comp Bow and then using the rest of the round to begin casting Spell. That can be particularly useful in some BG1 Waylays that do not show the most dangerous attackers at first. I am thinking here of a Half-Ogre about to pulverize Imoen.

    On the other hand I tend to let things take their course when attacked by Xvarts and Gibberlings. And though I don't do that for any reason other than taking a break it is definitely curious to see how the party does it on their own. My main quibble with their usual AI behavior is that they do not launch ranged attacks nearly as soon as they can.
  • OneAngryMushroomOneAngryMushroom Member Posts: 564
    Whats the point of a pause button like BGs if you're not going to use it in combat?
  • GreenWarlockGreenWarlock Member Posts: 1,354
    When I picked up BG back when it was first released, I felt that pausing during battle was cheating and mostly played it real-time. I would set up auto-pause for critical events such as spotting an enemy (prior to battle starting, lay out my battle plan) and characters closing in on death.

    This time around playing with the Enhanced Editions I am older and wiser, and prepared to pause a lot more frequently to manage the party, especially the spell casters. The game feels much simpler this time around but I am still not achieving no reload runs (quickly turning into 'minimal' reloads, for very poor definitions of 'minimal' :))

    I suspect one of the hardest game variants would be no-pause, no-reload with a party of six. The party of six is important, as that is what really makes no-pause tricky to manage.
  • SCARY_WIZARDSCARY_WIZARD Member Posts: 1,438
    Yep. Lots of auuto-pause conditions, and I like to pause sometimes to look at rolls made. :D!
  • CrevsDaakCrevsDaak Member Posts: 7,155
    I use pauses the most to assign a target when kiting with ranged weapons (I play solo, with SCS and at 60 FPS, so... XD), and to make perfect use of time in mage spells when I want to cast spells too.
    And about Auto pause...
    I mostly use Auto-Pause: Trap Found because all those many times you send you freaking thief over the traps, your thief detects the trap and *then* steps over it. No more.
    Then I use Auto-Pause: Spell Cast when I use Improved Alacrity.
    I make lot of use of the F1-F12 keys when I play, but sometimes my hands get in a silly slumber and I have to pause more or stop playing, but stop playing is never an option...
  • badbromancebadbromance Member Posts: 238
    Pausing is amazing and auto pause is even better.

    Can't tell you how many traps I set off before I found the Auto pause setting for it... kind of embarrassing really :/
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