Larian Studios Forums Beyond Divinity (English) Suggestions Water vs fire/earth vs air...

Well with the demo released I started up my old thrusty hexeditor to "give" (read as cheat) me some more skill points. Here is what I found out. When as a wizard you create a spell, you can create a spell with the elements water and fire. Am I the oly one who sees a contradiction here. I believe that when you create a fire spell and add a water spell to it, it should damage the fire spell and itself. Sure when you fire a missile they split up and converge on the enemy. But it remains the same. IMHO When you add water to your fire spell it should weaken the spell. In golden sun (GBA) they also use air water fire and ground. Theire the fire and ground go together (elements are compatible) but water and fire do not go to gether. I think You should keep those seperated.

Skill 1 = fire/ground missle (when you add water or air here you should get a weaker spell instead of a stronger one IMHO)
skill 2 = air/water missle

Can anyone follow me? What do you guys think?


Also A litte thing. You can learn the same skill twice.

example:

Skill 1
Fire 5
water 5
ground 5
air 5

skill 2:
Fire 5
water 5
ground 5
air 5

So the player needs to be on his tows when creating a spell so that he doesn't create the same spell twice.

PS: realy loved it when you get a deathblow. Well now back to game to discover new things. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/badsmile2.gif" alt="" />

Well obviously if you just toss fire and water magic together they will interfere with each other. That's why proper technique is to isolate spell components with an appropriate null magic field while they are forming. The targeting system of course keeps track of each component, and makes sure there is a slight time or distance difference between them. If you get hit with a fireball in the chest/head and a water blast in the stomach/leggs, they are not going to cancel each other out.
<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/silly.gif" alt="" />


There could be a warning when creating a similar spell to one you have, but you may want some similar spells. You would not want to teach both characters Identify or Repair, but you may want to have your mage learn 2 missle fire spells (one with more damage, the other with lower mana requirements), or duplicate a fire spell planning to add earth damage your next level.
I could see it getting a little messy for the game to try determining if a duplicate skill type was learned accidentally or on purpose.

ROFL good one Raze <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/delight.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/up.gif" alt="" /> (talk about using your accuracy points <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/silly.gif" alt="" />)

As for the doubble skill I hadn't tought about those problems, but you are right it can get messy. Too bad we can't name our spells to make it more insightfull. I like the icons but theire have to be a lot more of them. Maybe some kind of party summary to know wich skills are with wich party member.

Don't underestimate magic <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Well I was looking for a way to get this explained. It was explained and thats good enough for me. I didn't want it to change I like the powerfull spell, but just needed a reason for my brain to except this informaion. Then Raze came with a somewhat logical explication, so I am happy know. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Raze has a point and ...

if you closely look to the mana cost you will see that put 1 point in 2 elements cost you a lot more mana because you need a lot more concentration to be able to cast 2 different elements at the same time. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />

thanks for being here, yann. i noticed that as well. i mean adding a point in different element from what u initially invested in.

for morbo's benefit, when i put 2 points in water & a point in air for my mage, i can see 2 projectiles every time i cast the spells. so raze is right when it comes to separation of each element when cast. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/think.gif" alt="" />

I think it's perfectly fine that elements can add. Boiling water is worse than just water or fire.

And besides, the mana cost for combining elements increases dramatically. You can combine them, but you might be wasting mana on an element that they can resist.

Water against fire creatures - does it work ?

I would assume any fire based creatures in the game would have something like -100 resistance to water, and +100 resistance to fire.

in the full version wouldthere be a skill like know creature in <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" /> cause it would be really usefull if u hav different spells. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/think.gif" alt="" />

There is a button in the bottom left corner of the skills pane you can click to show all skills, though I do not think you can get a detailed description until you actually learn the skill;

Warrior | Craftsmanship | Identify | Creature

I love how they put it under Craftmanship. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> I understand why though.

Well I checked it today and here are the results.

1 missle with 5 of everyting = 472 mana
4 missles with 5 in one element = 436 mana

Thats 36 mana you save, but when we take in account the time. 4 skills => 4 times casting a spell. 1 skill => 1 time casting a spell. So we can basicly say that the 36 mana points are compensated with your gain in time. However when we take in account that some creatures have resistance agianst certain elements, it is better to have 4 seperate skills. All I can say is

Nice balancing <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/up.gif" alt="" />

Very interesting. Thanks for that Morbo! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/up.gif" alt="" />

Morbo, what do you mean with "with 5 of everything" ?

5 points of fire
5 points of water
5 points of air
5 points of earth

<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />

Thanks. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Let me point out the trophies list again: as soon as you have killed one enemy, you will know how to kill the same class/race. The list is very detailed, my favourite one in BD <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/up.gif" alt="" /> - as skill pts are precious, I think I'll skip this one to save (know creature).

I simply go into pause mode and have a peep <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />

ok thanks raze, kiya. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wave.gif" alt="" />