To(auto-)pause or not to (auto-)pause ?

[Yorick]

I suppose I should've mentioned that I pause manually. Does this make me more of a control freak? ("YOU'LL PAUSE ONLY WHEN I TELL YOU COMPUTER")

I'm sorry Koln isn't giving you much joy Ramon. Hope it picks up mate.

[Magness]

I never use the NPC AI ... EVER!!! I've used it in the past, but I find that it makes the NPC's far too stupid!!! The AI should instead be called AS (Artificial Stupidity)!!!

I always turn off the NPC AI and control the actions of all NPCs in my party. I don't bother to use auto-pause. If I feel the need to issue some orders, then I'll manually pause.

MINOR SPOILER.......






And related to the combat AI is the marching AI (I think that they may call it, pathing). This is really a pet peeve of mine.

I actually had Jahiera once walk into the the really nasty crushing trap in the first level of the Assylum Dungeon when I was intentionally moving my party along a different path to avoid it. Of course, it killed her on the spot. She just plain decided that since others in my party were blocking her path she would go off and take the path that I was specifically avoiding!!!! GRRRRR!!!!

Why can't they have characters that are blocked by other characters while walking thru a narrow area just wait a moment and try the same path again instead of trying another path and keep waiting until the path is clear. Heck, I'd almost rather that they just didn't move instead of taking a path other than the one I want them to take.

Kinda went off on a minor tangent ....

Hello !

I have been reading regularly on this board for well over a month now, but I haver never
encountered any discussion on a topic I find rather interesting: how does the gaming experience differ due to different use of the auto-pause options ? In theory you should be able to play anywhere ranging from almost true round/turn-based to true real-time action-style to anything in-between. But in practice ? How do you like to play ? Have you experimented a lot with different autopause settings, pre-provided A.I. scripts for NPCs or even self-written A.I. scripts ?

I, myself, have not experimented much and I have played both games with almost all auto-pause options "on". That's because I am a controll freak and perfectionist, thus just the thought of a dumb A.I.-controlled character casting "Flamestrike" on a foe protected by a spell-reflection spell gives me the creeps ! To give you an actual example: at the start of the final battle with Irenicus I had Jaheira cast "Woodland Beings", just for the extra masscure spell of the nymph. Otherwise I did not pay much attention to her, because obviously there were other things to attend to. So what did this most intelligent lady do ? She happily kept casting her spells right into Irenicus' "Spelltrap" !

They did add two very useful auto-pause options in BG II, one being "spell-cast", the other "trap-found" - I found it most annoying
in BG I when a Imoen used to unwaveringly run into the very traps she had just detected every time I was just a fraction of a second late in pausing the game myself. But they just forgot one crucial new auto-pause option: I would call it "Magical/Quickslot item/Special ability -used." If that one existed, I could finally turn off the "end-of-round"-autopause, which would speed up the game quite a bit.

Even though I am myself just have not had the nerve to really try it, I am suspecting that there might a whole different world of gaming out there, if you use A.I. and scripts for your NPCs a lot more and autopausing a lot less. That's why I am so interested in your opinions/experiences on this.

There is one more reason: from what I have heard so far about Neverwinter Nights - the game we all will "have to" play next - there will be a lot less of pausing available. Not only in the multiplayer mode - for which the game is said to be especially designed (I have never played multi-player yet, but if it is done right, it should add much to the roleplaying aspect, which I should like) - but also in the single-player-mode. So I might have to change my playing style regardless if I want to or not.

So long,

Ramon

[Yorick]

Ramon,
I have been labelled a perfectionist and control freak by other musicians I've worked with but I have never used any auto-pause option.

Mind you as a musician I came to appreciate the serendipity or happy accident and the beauty of randomness, and thus haven't been labeled a control freak for six years.... funny, that's when I got married....

I personally think that the Autopause makes the game easier, especially the farther you go in the game. Why let the enemy always get the first shot off? Plus, it makes you have to worry less about what monsters are lurking and play the game. AI can be cool if you are a fighter class character, but a pain for the rest of your NPCs. Who really wants their Mage charging into melee battle? Most of the time I set it to hand-to-hand rush in for my front 3-4 and turn the AI off for the other two. Or I just shut down the AI completly depending on the battle. Does this make me a control freak? Well . . . it is my game. No one else will play it for me. If I want to watch a computer controlled game, I'll watch a movie.

Thank you for your replies so far.

But there are still quite a few things I want to hnow. For instance, how do you not use auto-pause without relying heavily on the A.I. ? Take a full-sized six member party like mine with 4 "full-time" spellcasters plus 2 "half-time" spellcasters and without autopause I would be lost in combat. Between
two autopauses I often get up to two dialogue boxes(at maximum size) worth of information about anything from spells cast to damage suffered to - often the most crucial information - spells cast by the opposition and all of that in maybe 3 or 4 seconds of real time. Of course, I could just pause manually every ten or so seconds, but then
I would have to start a major investigation how everybody was doing and what had been going on. And worse, spellcasters might have wasted precious time being idle after having cast or might have begun to cast an inadequate spell for the situation, that I would have to cancel with the spell being lost. Spellcasting is already so painfully slow compared with other form of attacks !
I really think they should consider allowing high level mages to cast two lower level spells per round to balance the enormous amount of damage fightertypes can then do so quickly. That would also reestablish the worth of some of those lower level spells that are very interesting but tend to go mostly unused later on in the game.

All in all, no, I do not think that pausing manually would work for me. But I am still curious about experiences with the other alternative: relying more on scripts, maybe even ones you have written yourselves. Isn't there a editor specificly for writing scripts that comes with the game ? There must be someone out there you has used that a lot. So just fill me in !

And yes, Magnese, I agree that pathfinding, while in general greatly improved over BG I, can be every annoying when it makes a npc go
astray in a crucial situation.

So long,

Ramon

About autopause, Ive never used it because usually it pauses when I dont want to pause. I like to fully control the game and the main thing i usually do about spellcasters is to pause when they cast a spell, as the fighters always do the same thing and i dont need to control them. But lately Ive been using the autopause "when enemy spotted", cause Ive sufered some painful loses in battles that i didnt know was fighting .
And the AI, I fully agree with Magness: it should be AS, or even better, ASS (artificial sucking stupidity ). The only time Ive used it was in BG1 when I went solo with an elven fighter. Once he reached a high level i turned his AI to attack everything that moved and that way he killed parties of mercenaries while i was AFK (away from keyboard ). It filled me with pride to let him kill the party of mercenaries in the Iron Throne building while i was in the bathroom .

I like to have controle most of the time so I only put auto-pause for finding traps.
it is really bad when I find a trap and don't stop my people from walking right over it in time.

[Memnoch]

I only have Autopause on for Enemy Sighted. Otherwise it gets too jerky and disjointed for me. I have the AI turned off and I just pause manually during the game depending on what everyone is doing. I don't care if some of them stand idle for a few seconds after killing someone or casting a spell, it's kinda like taking a breather!