I Hate: Disengagement attacks

 You're not going anywhere!

It has been so very long since I've added another entry to this oft-ignored little series of mine, and that has come from a merciful lack of mechanics and routines from the world of gaming that I can blanket say that I hate. Which is a good thing. There's also the shade in all of this that I don't exactly like thinking of the negative when there's so much of it already mixed in with the positive, and so I usually go out of my way to talk about positive things that I like. That being said, sometime things can't be avoided and I end up coming back around here anyway, talking about another thing that I cannot stand with every screaming fibre in this decaying body. Disengagement attacks. And saying that right now, I'm betting that the most common reaction is: what the heck even is that? So unfortunately this has to come with an explanation too.

During my exploration into Classic RPGs over the course of this year, I've become very familiar with the ins and outs of the heart of role playing games, and seen the techniques that have come to define this genre and the differences between it's subcategories. And trust me when I say, those modern RPGs that Bioware put out every blue moon, which are copied by some other developers here and there, have nothing on the absolute brain melting insanity of the CRPGs. Learning the benefits of turn-based RPGs and real time action is just the beginning, and picking a preference becomes muddy when you happen upon games like Pathfinder and Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire; which offers both. (I typically go for real time for those games, for no other reason then the fact these games were built for huge ungainly encounters that would take actual hours in turnbased.) And that is how I've learned of things like Disengagement attacks.

This is a mechanic which exists more in real time then in turn based games, but that's because they have a very similar but slightly different mechanic known as 'attack of opportunity'. If you think about the way how in X-Com, to use a popular example, uses a mechanic known as 'overwatch' to put your character on alert so that they can take an automatic, low accuracy, shot on a target the second that they move on their turn, we're essentially looking at a mechanic like that. For turn based games you get an attack of opportunity every time an enemy walks past your engagement range and it mirrors a mechanic present in DnD tabletop. But to explain exactly what 'disengagement' is, I'm afraid I have to dig a little deeper into how live action games treat this thing called 'engagement'.

So 'Engagement' is the solution to the problem of 'how do you deal with who's attacking who when you're dealing with huge fights'? Live action combat typically has most of the team on the player's end operated by AI, simply because the player doesn't really have the desire to micromanage everything until the later stages of the games in question where that becomes absolutely necessary. And so Engagement pairs up attackers with defenders in the way that let's the AI know "This is who I'm attacking, so this is where my attention needs to be." From this it should be pretty clear what Disengagement attacks are. When someone who is paired up moves out of the range of attack, the attacker is granted a free attack upon them when their back is turned. Striking in the back like a coward would. Although some games, like Pathfinder, take that a little further and have disengagement hit on anyone who moves out of range, even if that person was positioned behind the reactor and moved whilst they were busy. (Those are some straight supernatural reflexes) 

Okay, is everyone caught up, we all know what today's lesson is about? Good. Now I hate disengagement attacks, and I'm talking with a burning fiery world ending passion do I hate these goddamn disengagement attacks. And this is a very weird one for me, because in a battered, twisted little way I squint my eyes and actually kind of see the rough justification for why this mechanic has to exist and the role they have to fulfil in the overall grand scheme of CRPGs, but I can't come around to liking them. Or even begrudgingly accepting them. They are the devil to me and my gorges froths at the very idea of co-existing in this plane of existence with them. Each and everytime I see that crimson red disengagement number stat number pop up I wince at the cheap shot, and a large part of that comes from the very real fact that I only ever see the attack used against me, and that establishes the 'unfair treatment' complex right there.

Because you see, disengagement is something that only ever hit you if the the victim moves away of their own accord, which funnily enough is something that the AI never does. Sure you can use some powerful magic to knock them out of range, but that won't trigger it, meaning it really is a rule for thee but not for me. Even when you charge ranged archers in these games, something which makes them practically unable to hit you unless they're fitted with somesort of point-blank perk, (Which practically no one ever takes because Archers aren't supposed to be in Melee range most of the time anyeway) they'll rather spend their last moments desperately trying to bring down one of your companions in the back row as you chop them to pieces rather than try to save themselves by retreating. I have never seen a disengagement hit against an AI opponent, and why would it when most AI have the job of 'Swarm the arse and that's our entire plan'.  

The idea is that with this mechanic, the player won't run circles around the enemy in a way they feasible could do without these systems. So it's basically a balancing tool to make sure you play fair, but when you're dealing with a game and spongey human DM logic gives away to the cold, hard, unthinking iron of machine decision making, it can't help but feel as though these are systems designed to box you in. Imagine you're a delicate rouge doing stealth damage to a giant Treant Owlbear whilst your much hardier team members, and several ranks of summons, distract the thing. A Human DM might think the giant mindless monster would attack the horde in front of it, but the AI says "Well, the easiest to kill opponent is the thief behind me so I'm just going to do a three sixty on the spot and get to town." You see the turn, but what can you do about it? If you try to move your rouge he'll get a full-power blow on you anyway, so you're just sort of incentivised to stand there and get pummelled because RNG says this isn't in the cards for you today.

It's a bizarre issue, and one that I don't think can be adequately explained unless you're familiar with these sorts of games and the way that they play for yourself. I mean I could moan about things like how Pathfinder has a feat specifically for escaping engagement safely, but because you only have limited feat options in a playthrough you'd have to be insane to take it over actual class benefiting choices; but would that really mean anything to a non CRPG player? And again, I feel bad for being incensed at all, given the fact that a lot of these games have systems in place for disengagement play, such as spells for combat movement and feats for sneaking out of engagement, but they seem like bandaids on a searing wound of a badly made system to me. Only turn based RPGs handle attacks of opportunity with any class, because encounters need to be designed to consider such systems and the way the player handles them. But given as how I'm almost definitely in the minority of this little grip of mine, I know that the next time I see an enemy one shot me with it's back turned, whilst attacking someone else, because of engagement, I'm going to be only one in the world huffing and rolling my eyes.