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

I didn't mind spell reagents in Ultima games when I player them ages ago, but they were never a strategic, fun part of the game. Same with tents in Final Fantasy, etc. If I was out of X, I had to go grind to find some or get enough gold to buy some. Eventually I had 99 of everything, so they were useless as a game mechanic, merely a matter of needing to top them off occasionally.
I never played Darklands, Underworld or Betrayal at Krondor (though have the latter somewhere).


Larian did not just recently recognize that higher level spells should have a higher cost than low level spells.

Would you waste time after every battle for 10 or 15 minutes so you can use Fire Armageddon the next battle and finish it less than a minute faster than if you had used weaker spells?

You are hardly going to be randomly encountering opponents. You may miss a low level area and come back to it later, but then it is hardly a problem to be able to easily dispatch lower level opponents.

How do you know which encounters are the hardest? If you hit a tough fight, you still don't want to waste your limited use spells, in case there is another, tougher fight after that, so it would be better to use a bunch of potions and make due with regular spells...

I agree, if you want to enforce the turn system strictly, but in a lot of games a turn involves taking just one action whereas in D:OS you can take multiple actions each turn, which doesn't make sense in regards to time lapse. If you do not like the idea for some reason then that is what is important.

agreed, a player who understand and use the game mechanics effectively, will exploit these system, no matter what limits are introduced.

A mix of both could be usefull. Long cool-downs for high level spells and some portions to reset or shorten the cool downs. So you have time(spell) and resource management

>>Larian might or might not read this thread and pick up some ideas which they think would be good for the game.<<

I can guarantee you that we're reading (almost) all of it. We just don't have the time to comment as much as we'd like to. And yes, we're picking up a lot of ideas, for which we're very grateful btw.

This is mostly in response to raze comment (it is minor and not totally relevant to this thread). I have in fact played games that have done resource management in a useful fashion (though I have to admit it is very difficult to achieve the following three (imho) required goals):

a) fun
b) good balance at start of the game
c) good balance at the end of the game (and one presume or hope in the middle).
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If the game has 'random' load out (and I think they should; read fun factor) then for certain resource management there can be a balancing act (if you find more at the start you might find less at the end; or if you have many resources you might find more of one kind but less of the other - such as component for fire or water spell).
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However that is not to say I think this is the right way for D:OS - it might (or might not) work for D:OS with regards to (a) being fun but would certainly require a bit of work. There can be a bit of procedural work that keeps track of a target total resource and as resources are randomly generated the global pool can decrease so it is certain do-able.
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The reason I'm not suggesting this is (or is not) the right approach for D:OS is because there are many different systems and I think they can all be fun and still balanced. I'm not sure I like the idea of a spell that takes many rounds to cast (certainly 1.5 rounds is ok but if it takes too long it creates other issues with game play mechanics). Having a long cool down is certainly a method to handle the balance factor but again I can see pro/cons.
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So why am I not advocating a definitive method (or my prefer method) because as I already said all methods can be fun and balanced (to a degree). If I had to pick a method I lean towards resources because I love treasure hunting and resources are a form of treasure but that's a petty reason to advocate a specific method for D:OS which has other forms of treasure hunting and need not extend spell casting to treasure hunting (after all they have equipment and crafting already).
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I will say that I tend to lean towards mana pool over cool down (esp if there are no 'mana' potions) but that doesn't mean one method is better than the other (I like mana pool because you can pick and choose how to break down your usage of the mana against a given set of spells with different cost - mana potions of course break this model because then there are less pro/con of high cost spells).
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Given that D:OS turn base mechanic is very much focus on action points one can argue with a lot of strength that casting time is very much consistent with D:OS model as well as cool down.
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Anyways I'm sure that whatever the final solution is some folks will be happy and others will complain and I myself will be satisfy for what it is as that will define the type of game that is D:OS (btw I really liked DKS (but the dragon part at the end was not my favorite part of the game) and I don't remember quite so many threads on how to warp DKS mechanics).

I think if a game is designed from the start to have a crafting component to spells then it can work fine. Rather than have rare/random reagent requirement, though, I'd rather they become purchasable once you reach a certain point in the game (quest or location), even though that reduces them to a gold sink. Enchantments in Divinity 2 were fine; you had to be selective about what you upgraded before getting the battle tower, but then after that it didn't take a huge amount of farming to be able to upgrade whatever you had the formula to use (other than many level 10 enchantments, and all healing aura enchantments, requiring a moderately rare malachite gem). Of course you mostly only change enchantments when upgrading equipment, so that is much less frequent than spell use could be.

I liked the spell system in Evil Islands. The complexity of spells you could use was determined by how many experience points you put into magic, and you could break down a spell and change/add different 'runes' (don't recall if they were actually called runes) to increase the range, duration or effect, or decrease the cost. You needed to explore or complete quests to get certain spells and ruins, and it cost gold to break a spell down and modify it, but there was no luck involved and you never have to farm for anything. On the second island, you are joined by a mage, who's main attack is a lightning spell. I played as long as I could without upgrading anyone, until I couldn't progress on tactics alone, and then went and upgraded everyone's equipment and spells (there is a similar upgrade mechanic for equipment, and spells can be added to be triggered continuously, or when hit). In the case of the lightning spell, I was able to double the effect and cut the mana requirement (and so recharge time) in half, so that quadrupled the damage output.

For a good reagent system, IMNSHO, I think there would need to be an alchemy component to magic. Your ability to mix reagents properly would depend on your skill level (there could be a random chance involved to make a high level mixture or fail with a low level one) and possibly finding recipes, so if you are not a high enough level, you either can not use the spell or the effect is weaker. Any really rare reagents (or mixtures where the recipe has been 'lost') should be quest or location related, rather than random. Ideally you would get access to ready made mixtures for lower level spells as the game progressed, or there would be automatic crafting of reagents for low level spells. Essentially, it would need to be something that was more than effectively having a dozen different kinds of mana, and limited options to recover some of them.

The only farming you should be required to do if you use a high level spell more often than the game designed thought you should be able to use it, is if there is an actual farm in the game where you can hire someone to grow/gather plants or explore for minerals. Seeds can be quest related, and there can be game content related to developing and protecting the farm (recruiting workers, etc). Deciding how many of which herbs to plant and how much gold you want to spend to expand a farm would be strategic; visiting merchants a bunch of times to see if they have what you need, or running around looking for random loot, is not. IMNSHO.

You don't like reagents for spells, we get it. Not sure why you need to focus on that so much when there's been tons of other ideas suggested in this thread.
Now what about moving on and proposing combat ideas instead of rambling forever about reagents?

I was responding to Meme. If and when I have anything to add about other ideas, or if I think of anything worth posting, I will do so.

There was a kickstart by a norway team with this idea:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/171497873/festival-of-magic
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Not sure how well it would really work but might be an interesting approach (this game style is more jrpg I think - not sure)
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I cut it out to reduce the length of the quote; but I really dislike the idea of buying regents from vendors. I find that approach rather annoying and some what akin to buying potions (annoying because if you need a specific regent you either run around to the different vendor or wait for the vendors to reset - presuming the game has those mechanics). I'm not sure I see the difference between that and buying mana potions but it is certainly more annoying. DA had regents from plants (for potions; with certain plants being season limited; though I don't remember any mechanics that forced you to not simply wait until the plants 'regened' (been a while since I played); so other than patience it has the issue of no bounds on acquisition.
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I kind of like the idea of very limited rare resources where you have to actually make a decision of when to use them or save them. I think its been a while since I played such a game though for the life of me I can't remember which games took this approach and if it worked as well as I think it could.
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King bounty's (legend) approach to runes and skills is an interesting take. It is not quite as limited as it could be but still quite limited - i sort of like a system like that but use the runes for spells instead of skills.

Examples? System Shock (both), Deus Ex (all three parts), Thief ... nearly all "lightwight" RPG-mixes (or sneak-games) have such "super special attack who depends on a special resource" it's leads to the following situations.

• You end the game with all available resources, because you preserve it for a special fight... simply waste of inventory...
• You ignore the "special" because your play-style bypased it
• You use it to early ...

Your last five posts have been grousing that the thread isn't talking about what Grokalibre wants to talk about. So sorry. There's no need to be so grouchy about it.


Here the highlights of what ideas from the thread I've liked. This does not mean that I hate everything I do not mention, nor do I mention everything I like.

• Baudolino05's idea about the GUI showing the range of spells, although I think that's just an alpha thing and will get ironed out, and his idea of delaying turns. I wouldn't mind being able to chance the facing direction of your character, but that might be tricky to implement, at least in a way that doesn't slow down all the turns a little, regardless of whether you want to chance your facing direction or not.
• I like powerful spells requiring one or more turns to charge. On anything too weak to use them on, the fight might be almost over by the time you can fire them. On anything really strong, you might not want to sacrifice 2+ turns of mobility against dangerous foes.
• I really liked Elwyn's idea for cooldowns persisting out of combat, and resuming once you enter a new combat. That seems like a rather elegant way to make cooldowns matter. There does need to be some way to reset the cooldowns for activities in town or something, and I liked my own idea for tying that to resting in an inn or the Homestead, but having a 6 in-game-hour cooldown on how often you can rest. Yes, it's not perfect, cooldowns can be waited out, but the point of this "persistent cooldowns/rest to clear" system is that in a combat area, it's more appealing and more fun to keep going and let the cooldowns reset naturally than it is to constantly leave, rest, go back, fire one spell, leave, wait, rest....
• I agree that fighters mobility is an issue, and it does not help at all their their armour decreases movement speed (their Armour Specialist Ability should decrease the penalty and give a bonus at higher levels). Phoenix Dive is another nice spell to move Fighters around quickly, but...
• Fighters are too fragile. Really too fragile. Maybe it's just because we're dealing with Level 1-6 Fighters and everyone is weak at that level, but even if they avoid the AoE's of mages, and even if they reach the front lines to be a shield for the mages, it's not uncommon for them to die because they take a pounding from multiple enemies, and also...
• Fighters skills seem to be weak or broken. Whirlwind and Flurry have basically no range compared to normal attacks, and they tend to miss a lot more than they should given the normal attack's chances to hit.
• Grokalibre's idea of big spells requiring setup is a good one and fits in with the idea of combining existing spells.
• Spice's idea of low-level spells mostly just for creating surfaces is interesting, and also expanding it do maybe a double-tap system: Flare inflicts burning to a normal Target and does little damage, but Flare does extra damage to a target that IS burning. Note: Enemies who are burning should take reduced damage from Ice/water spells, enemies who are wet/chilled/frozen should take reduced damage from fire spells.

I already gave a reason why I do not like the idea: It defeats the point of having some spells take a turn to prepare. It's also a non-intuitive mechanic.

Naaa, the "one action per turn" TurnBased-System never overs the tactical depth what a action-point based systems over.

Look at the original XCOM, Jagged Alliance and the dump down current remakes.

if you want a TBS-System that makes sense (regarding to time lapse) you need a wee-go system like used Frozen Synapse or Combat Mission. But i think this don't fit here.

IMHO: AP based system offers the most opportunities for balancing and tactical depth

xpost as I believe this would be the correct thread for my original post: Post477694

Actually the new XCom is a better tactical game than the original one: better balanced and with more interesting tactical options. It's also a terrible strategy game if compared to the Microprose's masterpiece, but probably the two things are related

Both TOEE and Knights of the Chalice have a move/attack system in place and they kick the shit out of any other PC fantasy RPG when it comes to tactical depth.

To me APs make sense only in games where granular control on your characters is a core gameplay element, like in Jagged Alliance or Silent Storm. Otherwise, a move/attack system is more often than not a smarter solution.

PS: before anyone asks... the original XCOM/UFO was permanently installed in my HDD for like 10 years.

Regarding to the Comparison "XCOM new" and "XCOM old". The new one may be more balanced and mainlined but its also more boring and uninteresting than the older one. I don't see where are these "tactical options" are.

Currently i see D:OS more in the JA2 tradition (and hope more granularity will be added)

I'm not following any particular order:
1) Destructible...everything
2) Better use of the Z-axis
3) Active and passive abilities that, in most cases, are not simple boosts but full fledged tactical options.
4) Equip that works like the aforementioned abilities.

The New XCOM actually is more boring than the original one - don't get me wrong - but not because of its mission framework, which is simply better than the original (try the higher difficulty levels+hardcore mode or even better the competitive multiplayer if you don't believe me). The strategic layer, on the other hand, is absolutely incomparable to the UFO's counterpart. That's why the new XCom is most boring.



Jagged Alliance 2 is the best tactical game I've ever played (and probably, 20 years from now, it still will be), but - that being said - that kind of granularity would be totally out of place here. It would slow the game like hell...

Wow, this thread sure became popular while I was away for the holidays :O

There are a lot of great ideas being tossed around and I'm really glad that the developers are paying attention to this since we all want the best and most enjoyable game possible regardless of any disagreements. I'll toss in my two cents about what could possibly be worked in.

[Mages] I have a few views on what's been said so far. I'm truthfully not a big fan of a reagent system because more often than not, I'll hold on to powerful and rare reagents and completely forget to use them. The next thing I know, the game's over and I'll go, "well I saved that for nothing." Due to the many, many items possible in the game, I can see that becoming the case for hoarders such as I. Plus holding on to a lot of reagents will just take away valuable inventory space from all the hundreds of pumpkin, bucket and cooking-pot helms that I'll be hoarding >:D

I do like the idea of Mages not being able to cast any "Armageddon-rated" spells until they set it up beforehand with status effects or whatnot. Like I've mentioned in my original post, the way elements interact with each other is such a cool and interesting system - why not build upon it and make it actually have a deeper purpose of setting up some really amazing big spells instead of tossing it away on basic one-time status effects such as a bit of burning or a momentary freeze/stun? Maybe even work this idea with the Warrior and Ranger attack skills where there needs to be prerequisites set up before they can do a powerful attack?

If that doesn't happen, I am also agreeable with the idea of a long cast-time for the bigger Mage spells that essentially takes him out of the battle for however long it takes to fully cast the spell. But to kick it up a notch - why not have the Mage be shifted to the highest threat/aggro level when they start to cast a major spell? I know, I know, people instantly think of MMOs when they think of the term "aggro" but in this case, it might actually be a neat idea. If you were in a fight with a group and you see a Mage start to cast some spell that has a lot of effects and is taking him or her forever to cast, would'nt you try your damnest to put an arrow through that Mage's head before they can pull off the spell? But won't that make the Mage super easy to kill if the enemies focus on him whenever he casts a major spell you say? Well that just means that this following class would have more of a use:

[Warriors] I think this class needs a bit of reworking so that he has a lot more mobility and taunting/tanking abilities. If they go with the earlier idea of a Mage needing to set up status effects before launching a big nuke spell, then perhaps the Warrior and the Ranger should have more tools and skills available to cause status effects in order for the Mage to slam it home with a big spell.

If they go with the later idea of threat-levels/aggro, the Warrior should be able to have more taunt abilities to distract any enemies so that the Mage has time to fully cast a big spell. I do also think that the Warrior should be highly mobile in order to be more useful on a battlefield and not get in the way of spells. I know that they already have a Rush ability, but there could be a lot more such as a longish-ranged leap slam attack, a low-AP-cost sprint, etc.

Anyway, forgive me if some of these ideas or spells/abilities are already in the game. I've only played roughly half of the alpha so I don't know if any of these ideas or skills are already in the game or not.

I do agree it may not be intuitive and not suit D:OS. Thinking about it, my spell idea might make spells with preparation feel less unique.


I feel the AP system gives the player more freedom and isn't as frustration or discouraging when everything goes wrong due to randomness.

As long as you don't notice things which don't make sense, it's fine, it's just that I'd attack five times when I was still a low level and it would be efficient. I know the AP usage may not be final, but if I want to simply attack, have a lot of speed and the animation is not very fast, it slows down the pace of combat.