Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Beta Combat Ideas

1) That's what you wrote: "I pledged for this game same as you and I like the way it plays currently (minus a few bugs and quirks). So why should I have to play a game changed from what it originally was?".
Honestly, I can't see any sensible difference with my "quote", aside from the tone. Anyway, you didn't know how the game would have played when you backed it (neither did I) and you can't take the actual state of the alpha as the "original vision", simply because it is not.
2) What you are suggesting is far from a solution. It's a childish: "invent your how rules if you really want! I want to play my game as I like". I backed this game because I trust Larian's ability to make good games. I don't wanna do the work in their place.
3) I'm just a player. You are just a player. Everyone here is just a player. Larians will make their choices no matter what, but that doesn't change the fact that this is a game about choices and consequences, even if you don't like it. You can do all the stupid things you want in Original Sin, but you will pay the consequences.

PS: even if you don't like Ultima VII D:OS remains a game utterly inspired by Ultima VII. Not because I'm saying it, but because Swen stated it multiple times.

"Picture a modern version of a world not unlike that of Ultima VII, explored either alone or with a friend, that sees you engage adversaries in tactical turn-based combat reminiscent of the great turn-based RPGs of the past. A world that is filled to the brim with choice and consequence situations, reactive NPCs, and a considerable amount of surprises. A world that captures the feeling of playing pen and paper RPGs with our friends. Then add the new stuff..." - Vision statement for Divinity: Original Sin.

This is the game both you and I backed.

I don't like RTS games but I love every other game Larian made so I played Dragon Commander and enjoyed myself.

If they don't implement reagents will you still play? I'm assuming a yes answer here. Will you limit your use of certain skills because you think they are OP? If you do then you are following my suggestion. If you feel it's too easy why not challenge yourself? I've played plenty of games where I felt it was too easy so I decided to not use X skill or only hit because it would make it harder. My suggestion is for if they don't give lower cool downs then just refrain from using it for a few turns.

And yes I know they drew a lot of inspiration from Ultima. Doesn't mean I won't like this game, and so far I do. For all we know the most powerful skill could take five turns to cast and if you waited that long you would probably be dead. To be honest I forgot they were adding a cast time till you reminded me. Which in itself could solve a lot of problems.

We both have strong opinions and I for one am not saying you're wrong. But that a better solution might be available. I think we can both agree to disagree on the subject of reagents. Let's see if the cast time helps before we try. to think of new things to change

I can't see using both preparation time and a reagent system to balance the more powerful spells, and given the amount of things left to do, don't think switching to a reagent system is likely if level requirements, preparation time, adjustments to stats / skill points and the spells themselves, etc, will work.
Personally I'm not a fan of reagent systems, or food requirements, etc, so if Larian decided something like that was required, it would be much faster and easier (as stated above somewhere) to just eliminate the spell books and have the highest level spells only available from scrolls.

I wanna be honest: I DON'T believe reagents are the most elegant solution to the spell spam problem. But I DO believe that:
1) High level spell spam IS a big problem.
2) Reagents WOULD FIT a game with this specific selling point: "countless item interactions and item combinations are waiting to be discovered".

Pretty much this. It seems obvious that if a player finishes the game killing everybody, it'll leave the game world in a very different state than the one left by a player who finished it without killing anyone. I hope it will, anyway. I don't see how "being able to finish the game anyway, even if you killed everybody = no consequences".

It remains that we need more requirements and cost for powerful abilities. Cooldowns are a way to do that, but I personnaly think they're inelegant and I don't like them. Bringing back mana would already be better, for my tastes : "will I use those two powerful spells now, hoping this will end the encounter for me, or be more patient/tactical and use a greater variety of less costly, less powerful spells", is already a better choice to make imho. (granted mana/potions are a relatively scarce ressource).

I must also say that, being an avid p&p player (thus, I also like rules - disclaimer : I never played D&D), I like the idea of reagents, spell preparation time, etc. It's something that "feels" like a sorcerer "actually performing" magic, I think. It would make sense that highly powerful spells have that kind of requirement in a fantasy world.

To go further, I also like the idea of spells having direct consequences in the physical world, like, for example, a healing spell requiring to harm someone else. Magic invoking dark powers requiring sacrifices. Magic affecting the weather having a chance to go wrong and permanently freeze an area, etc. It would also make sense for a form of arguably nefarious and banned practice like source magic. (moar consequences : "am I gonna take the chance to use that very powerful fire spell to quickly dispatch those goblins, taking the risk to permanetly destroy every item to be found in this patch of forest ?") I guess It would be very hard to implement properly, though.

In the end, though, I mainly hope Larian will implement their vision on the game and not let themselves be influenced by design feedback from (potential) players too much. They're the pros, they know what they're doing (most of us probably don't) and they obviously have a pretty great idea of what to do with the game. (and I'm lovin' it )

Call me super obnoxious but I believe that Baudolino05's post page 1 (#477357), Argol228's (#477373), along with Spice's post page 2 (#477477) and two of my own posts page 2 too (#477549 & #477597), contain the best ideas that have been proposed in this thread so far (not a big challenge I know).

I'm quite convinced they would fit the game's current combat system, enhance it with more tactical value, and solve the issues that come the more often, like high lvl spells making everything else useless, or the silly AD&D cooldowns and rest.

High level spell spam is a problem (if you can call it that) that can be addressed by mechanisms that are not implemented yet in the alpha (likely preparation time and presumably level requirements). In the beta, or at least release, the characters are probably not going to start off at level 1 with some of the most powerful spells/skills.

Reagents kind of limit experimentation with mixing various spells and seeing what tactics you can come up with. I'm all for being able to find item combinations and make potions, etc, but spell reagents would make that mandatory rather than optional. There were a few gameplay videos during the kickstarter where people were running around looking for mana potions, since resting, etc, had not been implemented; reagents could add that same 'fun' for everyone when they get to a tough fight that they need their more powerful spells/skills to be able to handle.
Other than being an inventory management 'make work project', reagents also add an element of luck to combat (if you happen to find or buy a few extra rare reagents, or not), rather than tactics.

About spell preparation, what if you could use AP from your current turn and next turn, to cast the spell between the two turns? Kind of like a preemptive cast.

What about dropping some of your AP to push your turns back? It would have a permanent affect so it wouldn't be the same as delayed action.

I'm not exactly sure whether these two features would have a positive or negative effect on the strategy of the game.

Another thing that has not been mention yet, I think, but will help tremendously about balance is the fact that in the current build, only regular ranged/melee attacks have a chance to miss. Spells and special abilities always hit, which will change in the final release, I suppose.

If the most powerful spells cost a greater number of action points and have a greater chance to fail, it would make sense to use less powerful but more reliable minor spells.

To manage this casting chance without it becoming too frustating for the players, you could have different sucess and failure states, for example :

- you exceed the casting chance by x points, spell is cast.
- you fall short by a small number : spell is cast, but you exhaust yourself casting it, losing some HP.
- you miss the casting chance : spell flickers.
- you fail critically : something horrible happens : you set yourself on fire, you teleport, you invoke a powerful, hostile elemental, etc.

For those who like ressource management for magic, you could have some kind of totems or other magical trinkets that would help with your casting chance. They wouldn't be necessary, but could help with the higher level spells with a very low base casting chance.

Something like, lesser fire totem, give you +5% casting chance for fire spells,etc. Those could be craftable and/or expensive items that you can buy.

There's no such thing as "between" turns. You're either on Turn 1 or Turn 2. They might do something where you prepare to cast on Turn 1, and so do nothing else that turn, and can then cast on Turn 2, but not prepare to cast on Turn 1, cast "between" turns and can then do another action on Turn 2 (that would defeat the point of having some spells take a turn to prepare).

So instead of having small spells mixing into a big one, you guys would rather have your typical high lvl superstrong aoe nuke, but with downsides like long cooldown and cast time?

Resource management, if well implemented, has nothing to do with luck. It has to do with strategy. In a well designed system, if you run out of reagents in the middle of a dungeon, it's not because your are unlucky; it's because you made poor decisions before venturing in that dungeon.

PS: and yes, high level spell spam IS a problem, considering that it basically screws the tactical complexity of the combat system.

Resource management, if well implemented, has nothing to do with luck. It has to do with strategy.

Apparently I've never played a game where it has been well implemented. At the beginning of a game when money is usually in short supply, luck does play a roll in getting resources, unless merchants have a constant supply and gold is actually easy to get. In a game with no random encounters, luck makes even more of a difference.
Mid or late game resources are simply a money or time sink, since you can just buy more than you'd need for any individual area or dungeon and top off your supply when you return, or camp out at that one piece of swamp where you can find mandrake at midnight until you have a ton of it.


PS: and yes, high level spell spam IS a problem, considering that it basically screws the tactical complexity of the combat system.

If a spell is overpowered, that is a balance problem not a spam problem. If there are effective spells or combinations that you can consistently use (except where monster types / resistances or the environment would make them less effective) that is not a problem. That wouldn't prevent anyone from using or even preferring other spells, or making a completely different build.

Probably you don't. Basically any decent RPG from the 90s has some element of resource management (mana, potions, food, whatever). Making the amount of resources available in a given moment proportionate to the player's need it's all but impossible.






The only way to prevent high level spells from being overpowered against low-level creatures is using level scaling, which - tank God - is out of the table here. As long as a Fire Armageddon is more powerful than a Fireball and a Fireball is more powerful than a Flare, you need a good reason for not casting Fire Armageddon against any ice spirit you meet in the game. So high level spell spam IS a problem.

This is hopeless...

I haven't seen a well implemented version either, it's either been a case of requiring prophecy over strategy or just plain never using anything ever in case you need it at some point in the future, and using your infinite supply of magic time powers (save/load) instead.

Unfortunately it's also unrealistic to base the game around anything else, since this game had a mana system the combat encounters are either designed around resource management or not designed at all. If trivial combat encounters are to mean anything the game needs a core of resource management.

However to implement a system like that well the game needs to be balanced before the encounter design.

The question is really, how can a game with a badly implemented resource management system be fun? It's not actually as hard as it may seem, Baldurs Gate had terrible balancing but was a classic of the genre. I think the key is to make the resources something you want to maintain but always have a steady supply of. In Baldurs Gate it was sleep which was a weird system of using story continuity as a stick to beat the players with. I think cash works well, if any resource can be replaced with a noticeable, if inconsequential supply of cash and cash is always in plentiful supply but always less than the things the player might want to buy a player never really has to worry about running out, but always wants to conserve it.

If the game can't be balanced and resource management is wholly broken then it's probably best to just let the players use whatever broken crap they want. 1 overpowered ability is worse than 20. Just throw in some overpowered warrior abilities and focus on what you can fix.

Are you guys aware that this version is not even balanced yet ?

Everybody has finished the alpha content by now, we need something else to keep busy about the game

Also : more xp for quest objective completion / exploration, less for individual kills, plox.

Basically any decent RPG from the 90s has some element of resource management (mana, potions, food, whatever).

Mana, potions, non-essential food are all fine, since they are general resources. As long as you can sleep (or something) to restore health and mana, and there is enough loot that you can gradually build up a supply of stronger potions as the game progresses, there is no hassle with inventory management.
It is when there are dozens of specialized items or required food that it becomes a hassle in the early game or a time/money waster in the mid to late game.

Making the amount of resources available in a given moment proportionate to the player's need it's all but impossible.

Hence my negative view of reagents being required for spells.


As long as a Fire Armageddon is more powerful than a Fireball and a Fireball is more powerful than a Flare, you need a good reason for not casting Fire Armageddon against any ice spirit you meet in the game.

When balanced (the spells explicitly not being balanced in the alpha), higher level spells will take multiple turns to cast and have a longer cooldown, which may include time after combat has ended.
You are not going to have your mage waste a couple turns on preparing a powerful spell, if your warrior/archer will finish everyone off by then. You also are probably not going to cast Fire Armageddon if by the time it is ready the remaining opponents are in close proximity to both characters.

In a game with no random opponents, and every encounter specifically placed, what makes you think when your characters are at a high enough level to learn Fire Armageddon, that you will be running into a lot of single ice spirits?

Tell me something: Is your idea that "item management = a core" based on your personal experiences with games such Ultima VII, Underworld, Betrayal at Krondor, Darklands, etc. or is it just a prejudice?





1- Different casting times for different spells IS a solution to the high level spell spam problem. With the addition of this feature, Larians basically recognize the problem. Now we have to see if their solution is good enough.
2- Cooldowns after combat are useless. Probably the most exploitable restriction ever conceived.
3- This is a sandbox game, so there is no way to predict in what order you will meet what. Also it's normal, if not desirable, to have different encounter difficulties at any given moment of the adventure. The point of spell management is this: saving your best spells for the hardest encounters.