Larian Studios Forums Beyond Divinity (English) Suggestions Suggestions for combat

Since Larian is looking into new combat modes, here are some ideas that hopefully can make the combat for DD more challenging but not frustrating.

o Combat Modes for party members
Some 'AI' modes which make party members more useful. For example, the current aggresive mode can be used to make party members to attack enemies on sight. A 'support' mode can make them avoid enemy and use spells or missile fire to help you. A few commands can be added, such as "Help me" or "Heal me" or "Stay away", so that it is possible to give general order to the other party member without having to micromanage every movement.

The greatest advantage of this is there will be less babysitting for the 'weaker' character. A character can be weak in many context. What happens in BD is that we have to pause the game, move the threaten character out of danger, resume the game. Now, if a mage character can take care of itself, for example, we set it to "Distance to keep away from enemy: EXTREMELY FAR!", we don't have to worry about the mage standing there dumbly when attacked.

o Quick switching between characters
The current system is too awkward. Here's why. If I am the DK, I have to remember that I have the DK, and that the Hero is F1, and then I have to press the F1, but I have to press F2 if I want to switch from the Hero to the DK. Better to have a single key to cycle through.

o Formations
Make party management much more easier! At least set a minuimum distance between each character and make it such that the distance is maintained.

If this is like a simple plea, then please heed me, no, it is not!. This can elminate some of the babysitting issues that we have. For example, let say the Hero is a mage and armed with a bow, and that the DK is a warrior. If I move the two together, both of them will end up close to each other. If there's an enemy, it may attack the mage, forcing me to pause the game, or to frantically select the mage and make him run away, while moving my DK to engage the enemy. The DK now can engage the enemy on his own, but what if there are two enemies?

But let say there's formation. The Hero ends up some distance behind the DK. The two enemies see the DK and attack him as he is closer. The Hero is at the back and hence attracts less attention, so he can safely pick them off with magic or with his bow, and he does so automatically with his bow if we are focusing on the DK. Less babysitting. And if there's a simple ZOC implemented, it's make us feel smart.

o ZOC!!
It is simply not fun to have every enemy ignoring the tanker to chase after the mage. I hope something like this will be implemented in the 'tactical combat mode'. I have seem enemies running through the DK which is really annoying.

o Do something, anything, when threaten
At least attack back, or just run away if a character is attacked for some reason but at the time is not under control by the player, and is instructed not to attack back.

o Solo mode
This may sounds strange...or maybe even blashempous to the ears of the developers, but hear me out! Make it such that there are still two characters - the DK and the Hero, but allow it that one could be controlled fully by the AI, and allow some form of respawning so that the game will not be a tedious job of baby-sitting another character. The dev could make it so that we can choose to mircomanage both characters, or delegate one to the AI. Of course, we could still customise skills, equipment and etc, but by leaving one character to the PC, one can spend more time playing the game than babysitting.

Just think of D2's mercenary. You can give him items (at least after LoD). Well, BD can go even better - we can customise his skills and even take control of him if we wants to. The key issue, however, is if controlling 2 characters it too hard, it more of a chore than fun.

o No death penalty if one companion is down
This is one of the thing that sounds good but actually plays out bad. It enhances the problem of 'baby-sitting' another character. I would suggest either a respawn point, a time limit to ressurect the fallen character before a time limit, or just halve the HP of the remaining player and restore the fallen character's HP to halve. Or an 'auto-revive' items or expensive 'raise dead contract'. The thing is - the duo party system is cool and a sound idea, but if it is hard to control the other half, we may be tempted just to ditch one halve behind!

o Default skill/spells auto-cast
Gotten this idea from WarCraft III. Allow the player to set certain skills to auto-use in some context. For example, offensive spells when encountering enemies, healing when badly injuried and so on. A system like Tales of Phantasia could be implemented, whereby when the spell-caster reaches a percentage of mana he will stop using spells and switch to some other attacks.

Even better, we can have 'cross companion' skills assigned to hotkeys. For example, say that the Hero is a spellcaster. On the DK, we bind the 'H' key to the Magic -> Body -> Heal skill, so when we are using the DK, we can just press the H key to get the Hero to heal the DK, without having to switch to the Hero and pressing the hotkey for the skill, target the DK and right click.

o Modifiable Combat Speed
Some thinks the game is just right, some thing it is too slow, some wants it faster. Why not let us have the control? Give us a combat timing slider, and we can choose whether we want Matrix style gameplay or the crouching tiger/hidden dragon way.

Well, that's my two copper coin worth of ideas.

You forgot one option : No combat at all ! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/badsmile2.gif" alt="" />

What, and turn BD into a thematic cinematic action adventure game!? Surely you jest! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />

I'd say going for the spellcaster is good AI, except the part of running through the DK of course. That's what a human player would do.

Cross companion hotkeys and single key cycle through are good ideas (anything to avoid pausing for mundane things), but I do not know about auto-spells: to be truely efficient they need advanced customizable scripts (ie some players want to heal when their HP is 50% down some 75% and so on, and so forth for basically any spell)

No, don't worry, dumber AI does not make a good game either, so I'm not suggesting that. I am just saying that when the AI enemies ought to be blocked (say, like stuck in a hallway, or a door) but they somehow manage to run through the DK, even though the DK shall block them by his big imposing evil spiked black armour of infinite evilness and wickedness.

@ Rana_Loreus

We are in agreement then. The problem you are mentioning is of collision detection in the engine not combat. But then again I am nitpicking <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />

Sorry, but I have the strong belief that you can do good role play without combat at all.

I don't know why so many people think that combat is a "must", but anyway, I don't agree to that. Role playing is for me like playing in a thatre, except that you only play for yourself.
Take Hamlet for example, lots of fights, and in the end quite bloody - but the actors still play their role, and that's often without fighting at all !

That's why I'm so against fighting at all : I have often the impression as if monsters are put into a game simply as a means for uplevelling the hero - as cannon-fodder, nothing more.

I want monsters with a culture, with brains, they actually use, with thoughts, but not at all as simple cannon-fodder.

[Begin RPG philosphical discussion]
Actually, my remark was meant in jest. What you say have certain merit, is worth considering, but it just doesn't apply to BD because it wasn't designed with that approach in mind.

Unfortunately, it would be quite hard to code alternatives to combat since BD was concieved with lots of combat in mind. If game developers follow your suggestion, we could see intelligent monsters which could be bribed, persuaded, tricked, subdued without violence. Or perhaps we will have an 'stealth RPG' game.

The thing is, thanks to D&D, combat and RPG are some sort of hard-wired. Why is this so? I think it is because all games need conflict, and violence is the most primal form of conflict which we understood.

However, to code a game where there are other means and approaches to overwhelm an opponent, and such that it is not a 'puzzle' (as in puzzles in adventure games), it takes new breakthrough in AI, and the end result may resemblances something like an adventure game more than a RPG. Perhaps it may come to pass.

At any rate, when I first saw 'no combat', the word 'stealth' was screaming all over my mind, but I don't think BD can handle a Thief-like gameplay, especially when you are controlling 2 persons. Of course, just imagine how you can use stealth to slay a powerful demon. Even MGS 2 just gave up and have them go on a one-on-one fight in the end. However, I suppose if a RPG game is designed with 'avoiding' combat in mind, it is possible.

Food for thought!

Sorry, but I have sometimes real problems to divide irony from real intentions. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />

I think they will have to stay within the boundaries of what the engine can do. From the press release I understand tactical combat is what it is now. Less fighting, but the fights require some tactics (like the Torture Master).

Action could then be; More fighting, but the monsters are a bit less powerfull than in tactical mode.

Hardcore could bring you a lot of monsters to fight.

In addition the level up speed could be adjusted depending on the mode you are playing with. Also the effect of skills could be different. Skills that inflict damage, do more damage in hardcore then they do in tactical. Maybe they could even have a slightly different skill tree depending on the mode. I'm not sure if that is possible though.

Diplomacy was what hit me first. Trouble is with RPGs including the ones that have implemented Diplomacy and Stealth (the fallouts and baldur's gates to mention two), XP is mainly gained by killing opponents, and some boss fights are unavoidable. Which makes stealth/diplomacy alone a non-viable route, as you will end up with less experience and combat skills in those unavoidable fights that are tailored against combat oriented characters.


Do what I do: Consider everything sarcasm and irony until proven otherwise <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />

It works <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/silly.gif" alt="" /> (btw: Consider this sarcasm and irony <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/silly.gif" alt="" /> )

Well this all goes back to the iron rod in the cog to stop spiders from escaping. While some people would love to avoid the fight I welcome it (extra exp). I say that every orc, mage, guard I see will die a cruel and horrible death at my hand. (unless I am to weak at that time, then I'll sneak). Example: I will sneak, run & hide from large enemies. But wait till a level up 10 levels and then go back and say "Look you [nocando] thats the last drop now DIE, That was the last time you gave me a wedgy". Uuh strike that wedgy stuff those are personal issues <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cry.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/silly.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/silly.gif" alt="" />.