Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General About the action point system...a few suggestions.

I just think of it, so it might sounds good but might not be practical in Larian's engine, but I share these just in case.

1. Be able rewind for currently controlled player for movement. One thing I don't like about XCOM's action point system is, once you committed the move, you can't go back. ie. you move your character to a cover, and found out the enemy is in a position that even if you attack you have low chance to hit, you are discovered, now you have to suck it up and try your luck or hide behind cover. I do not wish to be able to rewind attacks that are committed, nor item use, etc. Just movement so player can try out their placement and know what's waiting them.( ie.check line of sight, check side/back attack bonus.) Don't flame me for XCOM, I know discover/being discovered is part of the game design.

Personally I think they can reveal enemy "after" your turn ended and committed actions, not by slowing down games a lot because the punish for one bad move in XCOM is gonna wipe your team( so you play as safe move as possible.)

2. A color coded action point for primary spell/attack.
Say people usually found that they miss a few point to do certain things after they move, and if game supports rewind they can cancel move and redo it again for shorter distance.

If D:OS can color code the primary attack/spell in the action dot like this, it would be really obvious for players.
ie. Move cost dots by distance. Primary attack cost 3 dots, and primary spell equipped(assigned) cost 5 dots. They can color the upper part of the first 3 dot in say red, and bottom part of first 5 dots in lighter mana blue, and the rest is just regular action point color. When you do the movement, it automatically colors the amount taken and change those action points needed to say orange from last action dot. So there is a visual gauge to know if you can do primary attack or spell before you even finish the movement.

Not that it's hard to remember your primary moves' cost, but it would be a really easy to implement feature to help players gauge their actions. ( or circle the action point with extra red/mana blue circle. ) Blue spell cost meter can change when you hover over the spell icons. Below is a mock up I did. Right click and "view image" to check full res at tinypic.


3. player should be able to decide where they are facing for movement type, if it's move and attack, then it make sense to skip the step. But if just move only, player should be able to decide which way to face to reduce possible penalty.

4. there should probably be a defense choice if player are equipped with a shield, I don't think cover is helpful in this game, but you can reduce your risk by "raise shield". Then with a penalty in next turn that cost you one more point to move.

5. Flee roll check should be done per player, I don't know if I observe right, but if two players engaged in combat, in the gameplay videos it seems one player could bring both out of battle field.

I guess that's all for now, any thought on this?

1. I understand your reasoning and wouldn't mind this. In games it's often hard to tell when geometry or items are blocking you and when they're not.

2. I didn't understand this part very well. I remember the movement-cursor already showing the amount of actions points taken to move (and if they don't, it'll be in the game). I don't think there's need for any special normal attack -treatment in this.

3. If facing affects things in the game, then definitely this is needed.

4. Defence would be nice.

5. Do you mean that currently player 1 can force both players out of combat and flee? I agree, players should be able to decide for themselves if they want to flee or not.

to point 5: when one player flees he can easily heal himselfand buy new healthpotions and then agian join the fight because he can run around in realtime while the other one is in TB-combat. that would make all bosses just boring since you can flee with one character and heal himself with no penalty at all.i think when both flee the enemys will regenerate.
this is the same problem that i have with the teleport pyramids i think they are overpowered when one is in TB combat and the other one can just teleport away.

to the point 1 i think is not good since there is no cover-system it is unnecssary. I think in D:OS it will be logical what is blocking when you are standing at a specific apot.

Point 2 like Singbird
Point 3 didnt they already implemented it? i thought so but i am really not sure.
point 4 yeah some tank abilities would be cool.

1. Nope, you're committed to a move once you make it. No takebacks. That's what they said when I asked about that exact same thing.

2. That will probably be in. At the very least there will be tooltips.

3. You probably can't. It might be possible to put it in, though. it could get obnoxious if each time you made a move you had to click again to stop your character rotating.

4. Depends on how shields are implemented.

5. It seems like a good idea, but it might be exploitable, like X-tasy pointed out. In any case, in the actual game the flee button won't be a teleport to safety, you'll have to run away a certain distance on the map.

I wish they'd reconsider point 1. It's too easy to misclick and move to completely the wrong place...

Unfortunately I don't think it will be practical to change point 1, otherwise you could abuse the opportunity attack system.

1: If they provide enough feedback (which Xcom often lacked) there's no problem. Comit to your move.

Well, you could make an exception for AoOs. Depends exactly how those work, I guess.

Interesting, so I don't mind if movement can not take back if there are hud info like, chance of hit(not including unrevealed/hidden enemy), facing attack bonus(if action points still allows following attack), line of sight indicator(ie if an enemy is blocked they will covered in a different color).

Or, let us take back movement only as suggested, and player can check line of sight with out other info.
For 2. my reason is, current system only show you how much for certain action cost(bright green) on the dot bar. If you have too few dots left, extra ones needed will turn red. Essentially like the movement cancel part, it's for game flow wise. If you have to constantly checking how much these 3 spells cost and casting range, back and forth checking how far you can go so remaining points can let you attack and with in range, it's gonna be a PITA. In some regular fight it's okay, heros can tank it, but on bigger fight, as in game play video they did during KS campaign. People frequently misclick and committed move already, and left with no enough action point to do anything else.

Implementation wise I don't really care, just a clear gauge that shows how your movement is going to affect your attack-ability. Say, if you move too far, specific spell icon will have a dynamic 'X' mark overlay on it, that's also good to me. There needs to be a clear indication for multiple action point system like ours. In XCOM you have 2 points only, so it doesn't really matter.

For change facing after movement, I think it's kinda needed, otherwise people will resort to walk L shapes to get the facing they want, which is also 2 step. Attack will automatically face your character to mob, that's fine. But when you want to reach mob fast and tanking, you might run to a bad situation without things like, run to a corner and facing out, run to 2 adjacent enemies and facing stronger foe, or just simply run ahead without blocking your ally's line of sight but in current system it might leave your back/side open for attack.

About flee exploit, that I didn't think about.
But there could also be a balance to do.
1. If you flee, you have to run away far enough, that's already done.
2. If you enter battle, you should automatically be last in queue.
So you can't enter and heal right away.
3. Re-engage distance should be the same as flee distance, so even if you buy potion back, you have to run toward your dying ally, with that last in queue penalty.
4. There could be map edge/entrance that's exploitable even in this case, if this is the case( spawn with in engage distance), you are automatically disabled 2 turns, and still last in queue in turn 3.( roughly based on what current system is doing flee, you have to run two turns straight to get enough distance to flee )

So penalty wise to get extra potion is pretty heavy in this situation, you have to spend 2 turns out of engage distance, go buy potion while your ally wait(to exploit TB system), and come back you have to wait another 2 turns at least to heal your ally. And, if mob have some buff when one of the player flee, like buff moral, chance to hit, that would also be interesting.

I'm thinking of Final Fantasy Tactics game when you suggested all of them except the number 2, and 5.