Larian Studios Forums Divine Divinity (English) Suggestions Combat systems

In Diablo II health potions have a delay, restoration potions do not (or did they change that in LOD?). I started a new character in LOD some time ago after not playing for awhile. I just about got myself killed because I was used to just using restoration potions, and wasn't taking the delay into account the first time I used a health potion.

Hmm it has been a while but I don't remember you may be right.

Though I have to say one of these two would be nice

1. Make the delay like diablo or
2. Or it restores health instantly but after you drank a potion(any) for 3 seconds you can not take any action but just move how about this? I mean make potions a little less powerful with no delay and instant heal and the alchemy skill potions rather become too powerful

I think the delayed reaction is good as in Diablo 2 and Thief. It makes sense that your body needs to absorb the potion first, no matter how magical.

There's a lot of balancing to be done on the transition from DD to RR. Charms is one, stack up on vitality charms and you can have over 3000 hps on your character. My 39 hero has like 30 constitution because there's always stamina potions. Points are best spent on agility and strength. (agility until your chance to hit and dodge is maxed or high enough) The item randomizer needs a big looking into as well. Upgrade your silver armor into something inferior? How about your Dragon Breastplate, I got an "upgrade" to a white texted piece with ZERO stats, just 190 armor was all I got, luckily we all have to use the save/load trick to get anything decent in the first place. That shouldn't even be possible!

Frost is lame. It's like a pause button that effects only the monsters. Polymorph is lame too, it's like playing a developer mode game and using your own "hack" spell to race through mobs to test quests and what not. Hopefully RR will be rendered with more challenge in mind. I love to let the boss monsters go full strength at me, toe to toe. That's what a hero is about imo, taking it like a man.

I know how hard balancing is, I've played Everquest for over 3 years and yet they still balance things with their patches, often adding content to break things all over again. It's neverending. It's a quest of keeping it fun while making it challenging. Some people want it more fun, some want the challenge, you're never going to please everyone. Trying to please everyone will only end up with a broken game.

Excellent! summation there, Clyston



<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/up.gif" alt="" />

About that "racing through mobs" :

I'm a non-fighter. I don't like fioghting that much. That's why I even stopped LOD.

I want to be able to finish quests without fighting. I consider it a broad cliché that an RPG game should mainly be based on combat. It's so heavy - this cliché - that almost no developing company has ever made a kind of effort to change that.

Icewind Dale, for example, has a very good athmosphere, but ios soo biased towards combat that I couldn't believe it. Less would have been more, in that case, I believe.

Another cliché is that "hardcore RPG player" LOVE difficult fights.

I am the exception from that rule : I consider myself a "hardcore RPG player" with the love for lots of detailed work - but I *don't* want difficult fights.

Some say tht difficult fights are a challenge - but from Icewind Dale II I heard it's maybe a fest of reloading.

I want to have fun without fighting - is that soo difficult for developing companies to learn ?

Not everywhere the idea of solving problems via combat is a generally accepted priinciple ...

Alrik, you're right. Though the hardcore RPG character is always a hulking fighter with a greatsword, there's no roleplaying in hacking orc's limbs off (no offence Jurak ;0)). Only Arcanum, Fallout 1, 2 and I think Planescape: Torment succeeded in non-combat solutions. Sometimes the pen is more powerful than the sword but when the pen's lacking...
I wonder if RR will have the "pen".

I don't have the time to read through the whole thread now, unfortunately, but I have some quick thoughts:

The fallout combat system is far superior to the now prevalent action rpg approach imo, (though I must say that the addition of a ctrl key lock on was very very welcome in DD, as it certainly decreased the twitch factor).

I'm not so sure that a fallout style combat system would suit DD though. In my mind the difference between a turn based system ala fallout and a real time twitch based system ala DD is the focus on roleplaying. No offense to DD, but fallout was a deeper rpg imo. DD is certainly more expansive, but it takes a more traditional dungeon romping style where you go to town to get a quest and trade then leave town to kill stuff. This style would be disrupted by a fallout style combat system because it is so much slower.

The beauty of the turn based system in fallout was that I was very attached to my character and I let my imagination fill in the blanks for me a bit. So, when I was playing fallout 2 and using the unarmed evasion skill, I could imagine my character going jet li, flipping about to evade bullets/melee strikes. This makes it so that the individual battles are more memorable, but this approach demands ALOT less combat. It's a trade off. Real time combat doesn't allow for all of the technique possible in turn based, but turn based is never going to be as exciting. No constant zig-zagging back and forth to avoid projectiles while you rush in to strike the killer blow with an axe.

I think these two different combat engines only fit in with entirely different game styles. The same type of player that loves the slow paced/strategic combat in fallout loves the endless dialogue puzzles of fallout and everything else that makes the pace of fallout snail like compared to a game like DD.

I am unable to play evil characters, I just don't tend to enjoy them. Nevertheless, I would occassionaly dabble in evil while playing FO, and this is another key difference. Imo the fallout combat engine isn't just fun because it's strategic, it's fun because it's evil. The first time I got into a fight in shady sands I ended up crippling Tandi, ("blowing her knee into the next town"), and then I approached her and finished her off with a bullet to the face as she lay helpless on the ground. This is where I think that the FO combat system involves more roleplaying, but I don't see room for this kinda action in DD really. The same is true when my character runs in front of a child during an urban gun fight to absorb the minigun spray that was directed at my companion, and that would've torn the kid to bits.

I guess I'm showing alot of bias here, though unintentionally. I think the DD universe could support a fallout type combat engine, but I think that you'd be missing out if all you went for were the increased strategic options that would be possible. I think a deeper game with more scripted events and quests for more character types, (not class based quests, but "karma based quests", if you will), would help make the turn based combat system much more poignant.

You have to include truly evil, not just "tough guy" dialogue options, and the quest/scripted events to go with, before you can fully enjoy the imaginative role playing options that a turn based combat system allows.

Morbo's final toughts:

(Got this from Jerry Springer and modified a bit, You'll hardly notice <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />)

It's never healty when the parents of a game fight to detirme whats best game, the game only suffers. The parent will have to learn to get along for the good of the game.

Now I like hack and slash and turn based combat systems. But I realy see it happening in the same game. So theire is only one option that remains. With <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/riftrunner.gif" alt="" /> and <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" />2 we will have 3 hack and slash games, so to even things out theire should be 3 turnbased games. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" /> Maybe a prequel (Zandalor: The young years, That story in the PDF file, ...). Well I guess I am saying theire enough <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" /> universe for us all <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> and is that not the important issue <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/question.gif" alt="" />

This is Morbo saying goodnight.


Keep up the good work Larian <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/up.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/up.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/up.gif" alt="" />

<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/delight.gif" alt="" /> good one, morbo. zandalor: the younger years. this reminds me much of wonder years series. what about janus the good boy turned bad? this will be similar to anakin skywalker @ darth vader in SW saga.

some more; breathing - story of jake, or the 3 jakes(there's a movie with this title, right?).

George goes trainspotting. "dude, u can put weed in there."

I thought [color:"yellow"]Divine[/color] <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" /> was kool, easy to use, especially with the 'control key' for targeting the nearest enemy. Baldurs Gate 2 was ok for PS2 unless u had to use a bow which I found was pretty awkward. Didn't like the look of Baldurs Gate 1 for PC, too many options buttons filling up the screen. If the developers stick to their idea of a party of playable characters I'd rather not see it follow the style of the Final Fantasy series, though good games, I soon got sick of the combat, once you know how to defeat a certain monster there's little strategy to it. It was good how you could pause Divinity during combat too, though when surrounded by many different enemies, hence if you are using magic which is affective to some and not others and cannot run it was awkward. However to make this better it would perhaps have to be turnbased and would ruin the game that many of us have become to love. If you could set some of the characters to e.g. run if they became so low on health, or to use certain magic types against certain enemies in an options menu pre-battle and then change between characters of you own free will, this could prove quite useful.

welcome to the forums, yeah, in the new <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/riftrunner.gif" alt="" /> there is battlefield technology to make it harder.

Personally, I like the system used in Gothic or Jedi Knight 2 : Jedi Outcast the most where it is more skill based in real life than just hack and slash where as "oooh, look at me, I am higher level than you therefore I can automatically win". I like the approach where levels CAN help a lot, but a low level character can also beat a cocky high level character not really caring to fight seriously.

Although, that would be almost impossible to do with renderings and stuff which is currently what you are working with.

A higher level fighter doesn't necessarily win in an RPG. The lower level just has to understand how to use what he has and the environment to his advantage. You can get to a high level by picking on those smaller than you, but just because you don't have the prowess doesn't mean you haven't got the know-how. It's the whole David and Goliath thing.

heh, lol, I was just playing jedi outcast 5 minutes ago, in it, you just learn a new level (no choise) every level,p retty sweet game, though, even though it is RPS <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shame.gif" alt="" />

the compbat system i liked the most, was in a game called "secret of mana" (nintendo SNES)
it was an console game, ok..
but it was very nice to play. and i never saw the same sort of combat system again.

the combat is in real time. and you have a "fatigue" system. you bar is at 100% when you swing, the bar drops to 0% and recharge. you can eater wait until 100% to get the full damage or you can hit example 50% to gat the half of the full damage.
you could choose between 8 different weopons
And the best part was if you usesd your sword for a long time you gat a level in sword mastery.
At level 2, you could do more damage by doing the following: if you hold your attack button, the 100% bar recharged even further until 200%. now you could do a special move with your sword,.
the more levels in a weopon the more damage you could do with spectacular moves. (but it takes alot longer to charge ofcours)

the same with the magic. if you use 1 spell alot the spell gets more powerfull.

the game pauzes when you select a new weopon or magic. the way you could select the weopons was very nice.
1 button activate not a window but a circle around your character. in ths circle you find the weopons. very easy to use.

i don't know if this could be partialy implemented in a PC game because most platers use the mouse now..

but yu have to see it to beleive it.. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/up.gif" alt="" />

Yeah, but that wouldn't really work too well on a PC... atleast I don't think so.

I like the way DD combat system created. Turn-based's also a good combat system, but I think it will not fit well with Divine's realm <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/disagree.gif" alt="" /> I don't know if you like to see it, but I will never spent even a second waiting my turn to kick Orc's a** off. Sorry for the bad word <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />

I like to see a real time combat system with the option of using AI scripts. Players can program their own AI scripts to control each member of the party. IWD I, II and BG I, II all support AI scripts, however, in those games you can always pause and make decisions, so AI scripts only have limited usage. The scripts will be very useful in a real time combat system, when it's hard to control all characters at the same time.

welcome to the forum!!!
<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wave.gif" alt="" />

the scorpions and the sommoned creatures did that in <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" /> and hopfuly teh deathnight will do that in <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/riftrunner.gif" alt="" />