Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General [Feature request]Waypoint system in combat

Since DOS2 relies even more heavily on environment effects and magical surfaces a waypoint system in combat would really increase the comfort of navigating your characters (especially melee classes) on the battlefield, avoiding all those nasty surfaces. While outside of combat characters now automatically avoid dangerous surfaces during combat the game only always offers the direct way to your goal. If you want to avoid surfaces, you have to do that by several manual steps, splitting up your APs:


The maximum distance you can cover with your AP in one step, right through the fire surface




Three manual steps needed to avoid the fire

In the example above the distance the character covered was exactly the same (18,8m), so that's not the issue here. It's just more time-consuming and tiresome to do all the steps manually instead of doing them in one, fluid step. But there are also other examples in which the system is not only more tiresome but also handicaps the player.

Example:
You have 4 APs left and want to attack a character who is 10m away. To cover the distance you needed 2 APs and have 2 APs left for attack. But on the direct line between you and the enemy is a necrofire surface you want to avoid. Only way to circumvent the surface is to split your approach up in two steps, covering a slight detour with a distance of 12m max. 12m in a direct line would only cost 2 APs as well but since you have to split it up in 10m for 2 APs and 3m for 1 AP your approach result in 3 APs which only leaves you 1 AP for attacking.

This handicap could be circumvented with a waypoint system in combat that only calculates total distance for the overal AP consumption. For the example above that would mean that you mark the space where you want to change the direction of your approach (e.g. by right-clicking on the ground) and then finally click on the space where you want to move. The system calculates your total route between your starting point and the waypoint and the waypoint and your final destination and charges your for 2 APs instead of 3.

So a pretty simple waypoint system would make both the overall navigation in combat more comfortable and at the same time would reduce possible handicaps due to the manual navigation around surfaces.

It may be convenient

but I can also see it getting people into trouble

ex:

there is fire on the ground like in your picture. User uses waypoint system to plot a safe course around the fire. Clicks to execute move. Character begins moving, once it reaches the first waypoint your character spots a trap. Keeps moving... walks into trap. Boom! Dead.

Avoidable if you were moving each step manually.

I don't see the point. The very same thing happens when you give your character the order to walk in a straight line. That has nothing to do with waypoints actually.

And this could of course be avoided by a simple mechanism that lets you choose to interrupt your move once you spot a trap.

This. Waypointing would be fantastic, and I've inadvertently found myself trying to shift click movement in the vain hope that it will work.

Plus, you can always right click to cancel any movement action abruptly if you detect a trap or some such.

I dont understand how that would improve things? Right now you dont waste movement AP.
If you can move 13m for 2 AP you can split it into 10m for 2AP and 3m for 0AP.
Why would i want a waypoint system for that when i can do it myself ?

I would just add a button to switch between a "no damage" route and a route "with damage".

This is what I thought as well. The OP claims the move took 3AP, but in my experience, this isn't the case. If you move some distance for instance, there's often some distance that you can move again, after stopping, that costs only 0 AP.

So, I'm not sure that I buy the premise that moving more than once burns AP.

Ya like others have said, you don't actually waste any AP by breaking it up because the remaining movement will cost 0 AP. However it would be nice to have a direct vs safe route toggle option where the game would calculate the fastest route for you and go for it.

So we've established that the movement/ distance / ap cost etc is the same whether you manual it or take it all in one chunk.

Now, is a waypoint feature out of the question? I think it would be an excellent addition to the tactical game.
Its:
-Easier to use and is intuitive
-Cuts down on time spent watching clunky animations/clicking carefully over and over around a fire
-Would be really really awesome to use.

I play with my partner and she's not nearly as well versed in games as me, still, we completed D:OS and D:OS EE and are playing this together and she STILL hates how the movement works and it STILL confuses her trying to safely navigate around a fire when it COULD BE SO MUCH BETTER.
"Just hold shift and click where you want your character to step darling"

This.

Above all it would be feature that benefits usability. And I really doubt that it would be hard to implement it.

If you hold right Shift, you can queue multiple move points by left clicking, to move along a specified path (same as Shift in D:OS).

Wait, you can do that right now? How do I not know this?

Wow, I hear that for the first time, thanks. Why did nobody ever tell me?

Well, here's something for a tutorial popup (yes, I didn't know this either)