Anybody else uses end of round auto-pause?
Alonso
Member Posts: 806
Looks like I'm the only BG player who uses it in the world! I find it useful to manage my spell casters, although it is a bit bugged. I guess I'm more into turn based gaming than real time. So, anybody?
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I also auto-pause on weapon unusable, but only in BGEE (Iron Crisis).
I feel like starting a campaign to raise awareness of its usefulness
i do however use auto trap find and pause then one is found, really love that feature.
Though with how crap pathfinding has been lately, I've started to think the auto-pause on enemy death would be a good one to turn on, so I can move characters better. They love to get stuck behind one-another and do their weird "I'm STUCK!" dance.
My blade is my tank (I think that when we say tank we mean the guy who is tough enough to take all the blows and live to tell it, right?). Usually he starts the fight with some buffing. He engages immediately the toughest enemy and casts defensive spin while the rest of the party do their thing. The great AC plus the buffing mean he's almost untouchable, so his chances of casting spells are quite good even while he's in the front line being attacked by the badass enemy.
I want him to keep using spells throughout the fight, but I also want him to use all his time between spells to hack and slash. Ideally, the sequence is:
- Round 1
- Casts defensive spin. Casting time very short.
- Spell cast auto-pause. Now I know he won't be able to cast spells for almost a whole round.
- Hack and slash.
- End of round auto-pause. He's ready to cast spells again
- Round 2
- Casts Slow (or whatever).
- Spell cast auto-pause.
- Back to hack and slash.
- End of round auto-pause. He's ready to cast spells again.
- Etc.
For other spell casters, the sequence is similar, except they tend to do it from the back.Bad thing is that the game is inconsisten with the pausing, so sometimes you have to guess when the round has actually finished.
Is that the way you use end of round auto-pause or do you do something different with it?
Same with round 2, I don't believe you can attack after casting Slow that round. No matter when the spell is cast, you can't cast and attack in the same round.
Typical examples include Mages with MMM. Especially powerful as you can cast your spell and then use the meteors to interrupt an enemy caster. Also a staple of SCS mages.
Since the rounds are only six seconds I think it might appear that you can do more than one type of action per round but I don't think it is intended to actually allow that.
I put charname up against Imoen. Paused the game, he was casting greater malison and she started with MMM. With unmodified casting times, she finished casting first but only slightly (1 second maybe) and was unable to make an attack roll before charname's spell finished casting, even with autopause turned on. That is, autopause triggered when she finished casting, and I told her to attack with the MMM's, but as soon as I unpaused the game re-autopaused when charname finished casting.
However, if she wore the Robe of Vecna then MMM finished casting immediately and autopaused and she was able to make 2-3 attack rolls before his spell finished casting and was able to hit several times, once interrupting and once hitting but not interrupting the casting.
As much as I liked this, I feel it is a bug.
My point was, that if for example you cast Magic Missile at the start of combat, then start attacking, you get to throw some meteors before being able to cast the next magic missile one round later. Given the short casting time of Magic Missile I would guess that you can fit in 4 meteors.
You should throw the meteors at a rate of one every 1.2 seconds (1 round = 6 seconds, five attacks per round).
Obviously with shorter casting times you can fit more attacks in between. But most spells do not take up the entire round.
I am not saying that it shouldn't be that way with quick cast spells that don't require much and a weapon that is already equipped, I just didn't think it was intended to work that way where characters can cast a spell AND attack in a single round or that it would work. I never really tested it like that.
Also, it doesn't work the other way. If you attack first with MMM or anything else then cast it waits until the next round to start casting. I tried again where I let Imoen throw 2 MMMs and then I paused and cast MM. She waits several seconds to start casting.
I am sure it works this way since I tested all the games. You can cast a spell and attack within the same round.
Try this, equip only one arrow and then autopause on weapon unusable. Fire the one arrow, then cast a spell and then unpause. It should take several seconds to start casting. But if you cast a spell first, then tell chars to attack they will begin immediately with no delays. Turn on the to-hit rolls and you can see when they make their attacks.
Update: Well, now I can do it both ways with zero delays with any weapon, including MMM's. Imoen can shoot a single arrow or throw a single sling bullet which should be halfway through the round when the autopause kicks in, but then I can cast a magic missile and she starts casting immediately. Or I can throw a single Melf MM and then pause, and then cast magic missile and she starts casting immediately. I did reboot since last night and I am pretty sure I am using the same PC version of the game so it is strange why I am able to do it now when it didn't work last night, but still it seems that you can get an attack and a spell off in the same round.
Funny, the redmine ticket I opened was closed with a reference to your other thread @Alonso forums.beamdog.com/discussion/57228/end-of-round-auto-pause-doesnt-seem-to-work
First time I read Seth's post I didn't get jack. Now I think I got a rough idea of what he means, but it makes everything more confusing. And I thought that I had finally managed to understand how it works
We have been discussing this in the parallel thread as well, but the more we discuss it the more confused I am
*shakes fist at the sky*
The end of round auto pause never really worked perfectly for the infinity engine games because the round system wasn't ever really perfectly implemented in the engine. It was one of the first unifications of real time strategy, turn based combat, and D&D engine mechanics, after all.
Additionally, some spells take longer than a round to cast, so that adds even more to the confusion: some spells even take a partial round (wtf???)
Despits these flaws, I have found end of round autopause to be the easiest way for me to remind myself to micromanage my casters. I acknowledge that it isn't perfect: sometimes my mage will get a shot off with their sling before the end of the round pause takes effect--the speed factors for slings are about average so sometimes this happens. But I find spell cast autopause and target gone autopause way too redundant for a six person party, although they work perfectly for solo or even two person parties.
I mainly use it in difficult battles (you know, after I reload, my reloaditus is almost as bad as my restartitus) when I lost because I got distracted by my fighters in the heat of battle and forget that my Mage is throwing pebbles instead of reigning fire from hell upon my enemies.
I guess that is why I like mages that can use bows as well (fighter/mages or even thief/mages) because slings are generally not as powerful as bows and crossbows, and it doesn't hurt as much if I forget that they are using ranged weapons instead of spells.
The autopause I use all the time, no matter what, are enemy sighted, character death, and trap detected.