Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General Action Point Resolution

I am concerned that the scaling down of action point economy will no longer allow the proper resolution to move strategically as well as cast, while stacking fractional turn AP. The depth of combat in DOS1 came from making tough choices about very small movements, and deciding whether to move one step and stun an opponent, or move none and heal an ally. The entirety of the strategic analysis wouldn't have been possible without a high resolution (in action points) of any sequence of moves in a given battle.

Any mathematicians want to go ahead and take some guesses at how the loss of fractional recombinations across a few turns will effect the complexity of battles?

This feeling I wrote couple of times on the forum since AP "streamlining" announced.
DOS uniqnues and smooth feeling of transfering time from one turn to another makes it more realtime.
Any other turn based game is about - move or loose your action.
Make one AP as "bigger quantum of time" means less chance to save a fraction. Less smoothness, less strategic-wise. More binary.

PvP mode sounds very promising. There migh be a lot of people who are too slow or too lazy or want more dept than usual MOBA. Or might want somethin more action that card games.There is a huge market when play it good. More strategy less random, make it a new 3D chess.

I would really want more AP.
6-20 AP is good.
Count to 20 is common sense.

I think the best way to give more movement freedom would be to give characters a small amount (1-5m) of 0 AP movement each turn, more depending on your speed. Any movement beyond this would cost AP. I think this would do leagues to make the game more mobile and especially give rogues or fast characters more opportunities to utilize their movement while keeping the game both strategic and fast paced.

Not like it wasn't ideal to avoid moving or use action-oriented moves like battering ram as much as possible in the first game either. Another option for Larian is to integrate movement into more skills, especially rogue and warrior ones, like leap attacks, grapple skills, a short range netherswap + attack kind of spell for rogues or the like. This skills could be weaker than straight attacks, but obviously would be versatile.

As far as a mathematical reduction in possible combinations of actions from a reduction in AP resolution, I'm guessing it's still a pretty massive amount, essentially infinite if you consider various movements to different locations as different actions, and still gargantuan just considering the possible skill combinations alone without regarding movement. What combinations are strategically viable is another story, but still seems like a lot of options are available.

It definitely adds time to consider and count the AP of a 4 AP action, a 7 AP action, a 2 AP action, and 2 AP of movement, for example, or maybe you should do 2x 3 AP actions, a 6 AP action, and 3 AP of movement? Whether actual strategic value is sacrificed for the convenience of dealing with just 3-4 AP is something I'll have to see from playing myself, but my first impression from the videos is that, yes, movement needs some love, but combat overall looks pretty similar and in many ways improved to me.

Wow.
That sounds good. Low AP, but combat is not so static. I realy like it.
With Low AP then first step is super expensive so combat tend to be static. your idea sir, definately deserves to be tested. Maby everyone gets 2m then you could get bonus free movement meters by investing in rogue/man-at-arms trees. Perhaps talent Quick shoes ?

Yes!

Have you eaten a smart soup for breakfast?

Anyway, shrink deafult attack/spell to One AP removes interesting talent - Elemental affinity. I relly like this talent, its most specific of DOS - element magic for me.

I actually find this combat to be MORE strategic personally. Before you ended up with such a large amount of AP that you more reasonably ran out of moves before you ran out of AP... with moves that often felt like they used random amounts of AP.

Now? Every single AP matters. There are no superfluous choices. With AP costs being very strategic.

Your point of view is somewhat twisted. In fact is oposite, less AP per turn more superfluous actions.

Check this:
8 AP per turn
- 1AP move, 2AP HP potion, 4 AP cc, 1 AP saved --> next turn I could summon 9 AP Master Level spell

3AP per turn
- 1AP move,1AP HP potion, 1AP cc spell, no saved no tactic --> Next turn summon 3AP Master level spell


As you can see, in the streamlined version, there is less chance to pass a fraction of time to next turn. e.g. less tactic. Less chance to manage your AP, it is more "use it or waste it". That is --> less tactic.

Also usage of superfluous actions is more often when passing AP is not very strategic. Less AP, less passing AP to another turn means --> Less tactic

Tactics are how skills and moves are used and combined, not how many AP you can carry over to the next round. If larger numbers mean most people don't try planning 3 or 4 moves in advance, it isn't more tactical than if smaller numbers do encourage that.

Anyway, that's the point of playtesting and getting feedback at PAX East, etc.

Yeah, as has been mentioned before, the XCOM games provide good tactics with what could be described as 2AP-per-turn. That said, it is also fundamentally different, with tactics that rely more on positioning than on frequent use of skills.

That's a big plus for XCOM. Much of the time you're trying to position your troops correctly, and using an ability is a pretty big deal. I am still sceptical about whether this is a good thing for D:OS2 until I have a chance to try it.

The ideas I like so far (these were also used in XCOM):

• Melee abilities should provide some free movement in order to help melee characters position effectively.
  
• Ranged abilities shouldn't require any free movement, but they should provide some capacity for aiming around obstacles. Also, perhaps instead of having a strict range limit, they should simply have range penalties.

One important thing to remember here is that this is PRE-ALPHA footage. This is a thing I've said over and over during PAX to people who came to our booth. The numbers, the UI, everything will probably strongly change until the release of the game. People that have played at PAX really liked less AP but do that means that we'll have 6 max AP when the game will be released and that we'll get 3 per turn? Probably not. Everything is subject to change.

Also, for the range, this is where our new elevation system comes into play here. Being on a higher position really gives a lot of bonuses to range and damage.

We want to play this pre-alpha dangit!

You had to be at PAX for that

too far!

Or you know... Don't do a 1AP CC spell and thus have 4AP next round. Which is a rather sizable advantage.

But as for the "strategy" it comes forth in the AP costs.

Since... it is 3AP per turn... 6AP total...

And it isn't Xcom that gives me the reason to say that the 3AP per turn is more strategic.

It is because in Divinity Original Sin the AP costs basically broke down and were mostly nonsense... and your goal was to basically break the game over your knee and cast as many skills in a turn as possible OR to do filler moves in the mean time.

Now? The AP cost of a skill DIRECTLY co-relates to how much of an effect it has on the battlefield, if done correctly, with few exceptions... AND there is no way to inflate your AP out of control so the skills never have to "adjust" to someone having double the amount of AP available.

Can this be done with a 6ap system? Sure... I have no objection... But my "More strategic" isn't with the amount of points but rather with the consistency and how every SINGLE point is absolutely vital as opposed to being kind of superfluous.

0 point: Features and shifts
1 point: Minor advantage
2 point: Major advantage
3 point: Tide Turning skill

With source points being the wrench in the machine.

As opposed to the old system of:

1-9: Whatever

I'm mostly worried about being just barely out of range, or having an inconvenient obstacle and being forced to waste a valuable action point just to take a couple of steps to position yourself correctly. If you have 4 AP and want to use a 4 AP skill, this is a pain. I had the same issue in the original D:OS, actually, but the issue will be more prominent if the total AP is reduced.

I do like that bows now fire in an arc. Theoretically, this should help.

I also had the same issue in XCOM occasionally, but it was pretty rare, especially considering half of your AP was usually reserved for movement anyway.


Would it be unrealistic to hope you'll have a similar presentation at PAX Australia? XD

Here is a thing id like to see with the new AP system: screw cooldowns.

Since you cant play Ap tetris anymore, i see no reason for cooldowns on many of the combat spells.
Its already a descision wether or not you play a powerfull spell or a weak one, rather in in Original Sin 1 where you would always cast the powerfull ones if you could get away with.
Plus the source point system that already manages the REALY powerfull spells.

So imo, the cooldown mechanic is just a restriction that doesnt need to be there anymore.

hh, nice way how to describe a system.

I loved original UFO:Enemy unknown and Terror from the deep. The AP system there was like 60AP per turn. One step per 6AP. Pretty granular. You could move a grenade for 5AP from your belt to your hand then throw it for certain amount of AP. Then equip another nade from your bag to the hand for 10AP, or perhaps make 2 steps, or perhaps knee. A lot of options, a lot of possibilities to combine. Tetris. You could control charaters, you could choose from many options what to do.

The new age of UFO comes with 2AP system. How many action you could combine? Pretty dumb. I played that new version for about half an hour.

That is a moment which reminds downthere is a binary code.

Wish:
Make it so that on the edge of range probability of hit fades out. e.g. no sharp edge here is 90% chance to hit and 20cm further you cant hit at all.

Lets say: range is 15. Beond 15m you get minus 5% for every 0.1m That is way more close to analog reality. only add an context icon Out of range to be informed.

Good suggestions, but with DOS 2 due to be released in about 6 months I wonder how much of the combat system is already implemented and can't be changed without adding to the development time. Maybe these ideas will be incorporated into an Enhanced Edition

Gradual reduction in hit chance is definitely harder to balance than a binary in/out of range, but could be interesting (hard to balance with stuff like the source point version of bless that guarantees you hit, though.) Would be kind of cool if aoe skills like fireball would become innacurate like throwing grenades without pinpoint if you cast them out of range. Another idea, perhaps as a talent or stance, would be to be able to sacrifice health to cast with more range.

Also, they're probably still in the stage where they can add new combat features or make major rebalances, so I wouldn't worry that anything is set in stone by any means. I would not be surprised if the release got delayed, either. December seems pretty ambitious for the scope they're going for to me, though I imagine they're getting good at cranking stuff out at this point.

Source Bless guarants hit up to a max range. Out of range there is the fade out. Where do you see a problem ?