Larian Studios Forums Divinity 2 - Ego Draconis (English) Divinity 2 - Ego Draconis Wishlist

Have you played I of the Dragon? It's an action game where you are a dragon, fairly similar to Gauntlet. Movement in that was quite simple. Two keys adjusted your altitude, and you clicked on the ground to move above that point. A column of light shone from the ground where you're moving to, and a ball glowed in the column at your selected altitude. The dragon made his own choices as how to fly and turn there. Clicking on enemies would attack them with the selected weapon. If you selected a melee weapon (ie. pick them up in your claws and eat them) he'd swoop down and catch them mid-flight and then return to the safety of the skies. Regardless of whether you levitate or fly as a bird, this method can work.

As for combat, it very much depends on if it includes levitation-style, bird-style or both. Birds swooping opponents, raking them with swords and axes would be very impressive. Two birds fighting each other could be tricky. I've never seen AI handle this well. They usually end up circling each other getting nowhere.

For a levitator, combat can be roughly the same as ground combat. The main difference is the massive defensive bonus the levitator has. Anything fired at them would be over a longer distance and have to contend with wind, etc. A levitator throwing anything explosive at the grounded will have the benefit that even if they miss, the object will still explode upon hitting the ground. The grounded don't have that advantage throwing things into the air.

Another good point is gravity. The grounded strugle to shoot high enough to hit fliers. Of course, gravity works both ways. Should the flier take sufficient damage to knock them back in combat, the ground they fall on is a lot further away now.

There could be a whole sub-set of airborne combat skills like Swoop, Ride Wind, and any number of wind related spells and abilities.

I really don't like First Person view in RPGs

For speed you could use the same button as you would use for sprint.
wasd+mouse would do the trick moving around. And imo speed should be able to change during the attack thats one of the advantages of flying get some heigth first,
then drop down at an insane speed and your enemys won't know what hit them. And aiming at a target with a constant speed is alot easier as aiming at a target that can go from very fast to slow to not moving at all.

Imagine you are flying, in front of you are 10 enemys who are strong enough to survive more as one hit. Your char is a close combat fighter.
Now you don't want to finish them off one by one because else the other 9 could freely attack you.
Would you want to cycle through the targetting system to select the next enemy as you quickly fly in between and hit whoever comes close enough?
Imo it would be better to just hit and see if you hit them or not. Because auto targetting isn't effective when you are alone and fighting against a group.
And it does really matter if you are flying yourself or on another creature.
Because if you are flying yourself you couldn't really look left or right while flying somewhere,
but for example on the back of a dragon using a bow you should be able to tell the dragon fly overthere or circle around that enemy (or that group of enemys)
And use your bow to shoot them.
Offcourse if you use auto target (and the auto aim that comes with it)
it doesn't matter, but then you wouldn't really have to worry too much about the fighting since you just select a target start the attack and you fly around to keep yourself safe
(and the attack would continue untill the enemy is dead). But to me it would be like im playing as the dragon and not as the archer on its back.

Assuming no zoom, I'd use the mouse wheel for up & down. If you can zoom in/out of the terrain, I'd use Ctrl-Mouse Wheel for up and down. Keeps it simple <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

As for combat - there will obviously be stuff that uses ranged weapons from the air, and they shouldn't be hittable with normal melee weapons - not unless the character can fly up to them. Obviously with the character flying, there will be monsters that are just sitting ducks - or running ducks. No reason they shouldn't run if they can't hit back, after all.

If a creature or character melees with a ground based opponent, they could get a height bonus on normal attacks and a charge bonus on first attack if they swoop - especially with a spear or lance or other long pointy polearm. Obviously they'd be attackable with melee weapons from the ground once they were in melee range.

That's how I'd do it <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

WASD space ctrl
W pitch Down
A roll/turn left
S pitch up
D roll/turn right

space (or the button mapped to jump)
ctrl (or the button mapped to crouch if there was such ability)
: space & ctrl will allow you to change height vertical only, since dragons can hover locally.

mouse-movement: aiming, within the limits of the dragons neck, auto-aim would be enabled, since It would really hard to fly and aim at the same time; the mouse aiming would only be there to select targets, so you'll be able to choose your target if there are several.

Your flying mount would be able to perfectly gain height without the space and decrease heigth vise versa, no GTA flying controls wich are quite hard to handle. Even with two hands.

[color:"orange"]For speed you could use the same button as you would use for sprint.[/color]

Using the same walk/run toggle would only allow 2 flying speeds, but that may be sufficient.


[color:"orange"]wasd+mouse would do the trick moving around. And imo speed should be able to change during the attack thats one of the advantages of flying get some heigth first, then drop down at an insane speed and your enemys won't know what hit them.[/color]

Yes, but you do not actually change speed during the attack. An attack or defensive move may be proceeded by an increase or decrease in speed, but you would rarely try to change speed as you are in the middle of attacking.


[color:"orange"]aiming at a target with a constant speed is alot easier as aiming at a target that can go from very fast to slow to not moving at all.[/color]

In practice it is usually much easier to change direction than speed. If you are trying to get away from an attack you would probably already be going as fast as you could, and weaving / diving would be more effective than slowing down. Even if you keep a burst of speed in reserve, you can not outrun a lighting bolt.


[color:"orange"]Imagine you are flying, in front of you are 10 enemys who are strong enough to survive more as one hit. Your char is a close combat fighter.[/color]

If you can fly around in the form of a dragon you will have a ranged fire attack (or ice, etc). It doesn't make sense to have combat for a flying creature if it is restricted to melee attacks, and letting you be a dragon that couldn't breath fire would be terribly unfair.


[color:"orange"]Now you don't want to finish them off one by one because else the other 9 could freely attack you.[/color]

Without an area effect spell or fire attack you would have to finish them off one by one regardless of the combat controls.


[color:"orange"]Would you want to cycle through the targetting system to select the next enemy as you quickly fly in between and hit whoever comes close enough?[/color]

Firstly I would try to not be surrounded. Next I would attack the closest opponent repeatedly, using manual targeting if required, then move on to the next one. While I mentioned a hotkey to cycle through available targets, that would only be useful when there are relatively few opponents, or you just want to avoid targeting a specific one and don't care which alternate you get (ie leave a boss monster alone until you take out its support).


[color:"orange"]Imo it would be better to just hit and see if you hit them or not. Because auto targetting isn't effective when you are alone and fighting against a group.[/color]

So rather than having to manually target in certain situations you prefer to always have to manually pick a target?

Auto-targeting is not as selective when there are large groups of opponents. However, the game can rank wounded opponents higher than those at full health to make it easier to keep hitting the same one.


[color:"orange"]And it does really matter if you are flying yourself or on another creature.[/color]

Not unless you can put that creature on auto-pilot and have it fly itself. However, the possibility of combat in flight strongly implies you must both fly and fight. Just attacking while the computer flied or just flying while the computer attacked would be boring and pointless. Why would Larian go to the trouble of putting flying combat in the game if it was basically just using your character to attack from a glorified moving platform? Besides, melee characters on the back of a flying creature would be at a distinct disadvantage compared to archers or mages.


[color:"orange"]on the back of a dragon using a bow you should be able to tell the dragon fly overthere or circle around that enemy (or that group of enemys)[/color]

And if a mage shows up and starts casting magic missiles, would you then have to stop attacking, tell the dragon to take evasive action, then switch back to your character to attack? Even if the character doing the attacking and the creature/thing doing the flying are different, you must be able to control them simultaneously. If the controls are separate, coping with even very basic enemy AI would require a great deal of switching back and forth.


[color:"orange"]Offcourse if you use auto target (and the auto aim that comes with it)
it doesn't matter, but then you wouldn't really have to worry too much about the fighting since you just select a target start the attack and you fly around to keep yourself safe (and the attack would continue untill the enemy is dead).[/color]

You would have to break off the attack for evasive maneuvers, etc and you would loose the target when turning more than a little. Also, reasonably you could only attack when an opponent was below or in front of you. A dragon could not fly in a circle while continuously breathing fire at someone.

For dragon melee attacks you may be able to attack and have it continue until the opponent dies or you move, but that doesn't make much sense for ranged attacks. Also, if the enemy has a ranged weapon and decent aim you can not just hover and attack repeatedly. You are going to have to keep moving, so even under ideal circumstances you are only going to get a few attacks in before you pass over the target or otherwise have to break off the attack.


Speaking of hovering, if that is possible it should probably drain stamina more than flying fast. If dragons want to get away from a fight and take it easy they should either have to land somewhere or climb fairly high and glide.



For those that are interested, here are a couple links for the 'I of the Dragon' demo (228MB - here or here). Overall it is an ok action RPG, and worth trying if you like the idea of playing as a dragon. The combat isn't perfect (poor enemy AI, for the most part) but the controls are fairly effective and an example of trying to fly and fight.
In addition to the flight method HandEFood described, you can also use the arrow keys (forward/stop, left/right) which gives better control than clicking on the ground somewhere.
<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/evilgrin1.gif" alt="" /> If you try the demo, catch something big and switch to first person perspective to eat it. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/evilgrin1.gif" alt="" /> The steers in the game tutorial area would be good for this, but IIRC the tutorial isn't included in the demo.

I'm not saying you are trying to get away from the attack but trying to evade it. I wouldn't go full speed all the time when attacking someone (and evading their attacks) but I guess thats just my opinion.

So are we gonna be dragons for sure ? this example wasn't about a dragon but about a close combat fighter. (= not a dragon)
And wouldn't you want people to be able to choose for a melee type of char ?
what if I want to mount the dragon (or some other flying creature)
and use a spear or something to kill my enemys with. So flying into the group of enemys you wouldn't want to have a target selected or use auto aim since you will just stick your spear in whoever comes close enough.
...not really, you could hurt them as you fly by and as you turn and fly towards them again you might as well hit another enemy since the other enemy might be closer this time. OK, so you can't kill them all in the same hit. but you don't have to take them out one by one.

I'm not saying you will be surrounded because if you fly towards the enemys, they most likely will be facing you (else you could just hit them in the back). And as you fly by you already have some speed while those enemys don't so surrounded isn't the right term. And again finishing them off one by one is a bad strategic choice imo. (it depends on the situation and if you are alone or not) But alone vs a group taking them one by one shouldn't be able to work.
You are attacking just one target and the others are free to hit you and since you are focusing on that single enemy you will not really be able to defend yourself in a good way. (unless you have some seriously wicked skills I know nothing about) (and I know this is a ground to ground example, but in gothic 3 taking over a city from the orcs you would have to hit different chars to be able to defend yourself.)
Why do you really want to target the enemys ? I just want to hit in about the same way gothic 3 does. (but worked out better)
I don't want so select targets (unless when using some spells for example curses) And if it would require targeting, yes I would like to manually pick the targets.


Well but unless we are the dragon it would be too weird for me to be able to control it as if it was my own char. We should be able to control it in a way but more like giving it commands. I don't want the game to be like a crazy mod of a modern combat flying game. (so don't control the dragon like a fighter jet)
I really don't want to get the feeling the dragon is just a reskinned fighter jet. So unless we get wings in some way (evolving or some sort of being able to wear wings). I don't think we should be able to control the flying too much.
You could still use the wasd keys to move it, but more to evade things or fly closer to enemys than really controlling the dragons every move. And melee characters always have some sort of disadvantage versus ranged chars. But when they do get close they really are lethal.
why would we have to stop attacking ? and switching and all that ? did you really think this through ? so you really want a combat flying game where they made the fighting jets look like dragons ?


So we really are gonna be dragons ? Are you sure about this ?
A fighting system with us just hopping on the back of our flying creature would be really hard and very different from a fighting system where we are the flying creature. We can't control the creature we are flying as well as ourselves at least I think it should be like that.

And I don't want to offend you in any way but reading some comments made it look like you enabled some sort of "ignore whatever he is typing mode" and just comment further on your own post instead of mine.

mouseweel could turn out good or really bad.

[color:"orange"]I'm not saying you are trying to get away from the attack but trying to evade it.[/color]

Changing direction is still a lot easier than changing speed, especially when flying. Trying to maneuver and attack and change speed is too much to try all at the same time. I'm not saying you should never change speed, just that it is usually impractical during an attack and less effective than maneuvering.


[color:"orange"]I wouldn't go full speed all the time when attacking someone (and evading their attacks) but I guess thats just my opinion.[/color]

In nature things being chased run pretty much at full speed; things doing the chasing may have started off waiting or slowly stalking, but once the attack starts they go pretty much full speed. There may be a little extra both can do, but they change direction a lot more than speed.


[color:"orange"]So are we gonna be dragons for sure ?[/color]

Someone posted some time ago that they saw a preview of the game and the only thing they could say about it was you would be able to transform into a dragon. I tried looking for the post briefly, but couldn't find it.


[color:"orange"]And wouldn't you want people to be able to choose for a melee type of char ?[/color]

I'm all for choice in type of character, and usually favour melee myself.


[color:"orange"]So flying into the group of enemys you wouldn't want to have a target selected or use auto aim since you will just stick your spear in whoever comes close enough.[/color]

So fly by, start swinging and hope you get close enough to hit something? Without some form of targeting, the timing that would be required for this is much greater than for the proposed ground based micromanaged fighting systems.

If you get rid of targeting, that means ranged attacks would not be targeted either. These characters would have to just point themselves towards an opponents and start firing.


[color:"orange"]...not really, you could hurt them as you fly by and as you turn and fly towards them again you might as well hit another enemy since the other enemy might be closer this time. OK, so you can't kill them all in the same hit. but you don't have to take them out one by one.[/color]

Given a choice between targets in a group, it would be much more effective to attack one that is already injured. I didn't mean that you had to kill them in order, just that it would be much better to do full damage to half your opponents (so half were left that could attack) than to do half damage to all your opponents (in which case all could still attack).


[color:"orange"]But alone vs a group taking them one by one shouldn't be able to work.
You are attacking just one target and the others are free to hit you and since you are focusing on that single enemy you will not really be able to defend yourself in a good way.[/color]

Without an area effect spell or something you are always only going to be able to attack one at a time, so the remainder are always going to be able to attack you. You don't ignore everyone but the first one you hit, but if you are able to attack that one again rather than one at full strength, do so.

About the only time you would want to exclusively target a specific opponent in a group is if you have a strong enemy doing a lot of damage (ie a mage shooting fire balls at you) surrounded by weaker creatures.


[color:"orange"]Why do you really want to target the enemys ?[/color]

Because I don't want a micromanaged fighting system that is heavily biased towards melee fighting and focuses on the player's coordination and reaction time rather than the character's skills and abilities.


[color:"orange"]I just want to hit in about the same way gothic 3 does.[/color]

How does Gothic 3 handle ranged combat?


[color:"orange"]I don't want so select targets (unless when using some spells for example curses) And if it would require targeting, yes I would like to manually pick the targets.[/color]

How would you choose the targets?
The only thing I can think of to fly, attack and target at the same time is to have your left hand on the wasd keys for flight control (the left hand could also take care of pausing and potions) and use the mouse to select and attack. This would mean trying to click on a moving target that is changing direction while the screen focus is also changing direction in response to your flying.
Of course if dragons do not have spells then in your fight system there would be no need to fly and target at the same time.


[color:"orange"]Well but unless we are the dragon it would be too weird for me to be able to control it as if it was my own char. We should be able to control it in a way but more like giving it commands. I don't want the game to be like a crazy mod of a modern combat flying game. (so don't control the dragon like a fighter jet)[/color]

So lack of targeting would reduce ranged characters to maneuvering straight towards an opponent so they could start firing and then adjust their heading to hit the opponent as required, but you don't want the fight system to emulate a jet fighter????


[color:"orange"]You could still use the wasd keys to move it, but more to evade things or fly closer to enemys than really controlling the dragons every move.[/color]

I don't see the difference between using the wasd keys to move the dragon and using them to control it. You still have to use the keys, which puts limitations on what else you can control at the same time.


[color:"orange"]And melee characters always have some sort of disadvantage versus ranged chars. But when they do get close they really are lethal.[/color]

When fighting on the ground you can always get close. To allow a melee character to fight on a flying creature the game would have to be biased so that no creature could fly faster than you could (so nothing could hit and run repeatedly) and there were no effective ranged attacks.


[color:"orange"]why would we have to stop attacking ? and switching and all that ? did you really think this through ?[/color]

Ok, you are flying in a circle and an opponent on the ground has a ranged attack. Since you have a very predictable flight pattern even a simple enemy AI would be able to quite consistently hit your mount, thus killing it. Once dead it would fall to the ground, as would your character, which would be fatal.

Do you still see no need to simultaneously control both the flight and fighting?


[color:"orange"]so you really want a combat flying game where they made the fighting jets look like dragons ?[/color]

You seem to have no trouble advocating a control system which has been used in a different genre of game.

Flying is movement in 3 dimensions, and in order to have guided flight you must have a certain level of control. It doesn't matter if the thing flying is a dragon a jet or an alien, you still have the same physical restrictions and requirements. There is also fighting, which requires additional controls. In order to fly and fight at the same time, some controls must be automatic (roll left/right) and some optional (such as speed).

As for input, everyone is restricted to (at most) two hands, and the controls must be at least functional with a keyboard and mouse. Given the requirements of flying and fighting and the restrictions of input, I would think it impossible to come up with an effective control system that is completely unique.

The point of this discussion is for Larian to get a sense of what people want to control and what they would let the computer control. Since you want a very manual fight system you don't need any targeting, so the basic flight and attack controls are adequate. I don't want micromanaged fighting, so require a way to select opponents. Given the restrictions on controlling flight, attacking and targeting I can not think of a good way to do everything at once, so need to make further choices as to what is important (which for me results in the need for an auto-target system).



[color:"orange"]And I don't want to offend you in any way but reading some comments made it look like you enabled some sort of "ignore whatever he is typing mode" and just comment further on your own post instead of mine.[/color]

We are having a conversation. It isn't a question of ignoring you; if I believe you have missed the point of something I've said I will try to clarify it (as I expect you to do with me). If I realize I have missed the point of something you said (ie I didn't realize at first that you didn't want any targeting at all) then my earlier comments may be slightly off and I might also need to clarify or redirect them. If you bring up a point that gets me thinking about something else, I'll go with that. If some point or example I am making brings up something new (like hovering) that I wish to make a short side comment about, I don't think it is out of place to do so in the same post. The footnote about the game demo was to give an example of a control system to fly and fight, and is relevant to the overall conversation even if it is not directly in response to our own. If you can think of a game with a micromanaged fight system for a flying character, similar to what you would like, feel free to mention it so people can check out the demo.

I don't think the wealth of options previously mentioned for "active combat" systems would work well if flight is controlled at the same time – that would be too many keys to press simultaneously. However, that also depends on how flying opponents fight. One can think of a rather stationary battle where the opponents more or less hover, move only slightly back and forth (as well as up and down) or circle each other while almost continually attacking each other – comparable to the ground combat of opponents on foot. There could also be a battle comparable to the fight of knights with lances on horseback: They charge at each other (or one of them at the other one), only trying to hit when they are close to each other ... and maybe using ranged weapons the rest of the time.

For type A fights, combat controls might not need to be changed much compared to previous suggestions, as there isn't much movement necessary while the fight goes on. At least for type B fights, I'd like to have some auto-assistance, I guess. I'd prefer the controls for flying to be simple and not too much like a flight simulator. Any man-sized or larger creature that can fly in a fantasy world would probably need some magical assistance to do so, thus I wouldn't mind if flight were different from what it is for birds/planes/whatever in the real world.

I can also imagine leaving the flying to the computer during a fight, especially if the player character is just the rider. You could give some general rules on what your steed should do, much like you'd set actions for your companions on the ground. A click on the ground or on an enemy would be enough to override those general rules and bring you there (without changing height) or make your steed follow the selected enemy. It's like shouting commands to your steed: It follows them, but they aren't precise enough to make you feel like you'd fly on your own.

Fully controlling how your steed moves would be an option, however. In most RPGs you have full control of the horse you ride, so if it's possible to ride a flying creature, I see no reason why one shouldn't be able to control it as if it was one's own character – as long as this can be done in a simple way.

Another thing that crossed my mind: If we get to play a dragon, weight might play an important part in speed considerations. A dragon should quickly gain momentum when diving, while going up might be a way to quickly lose speed. Of course, that's based on the assumption that dragon flight also relies on the dragon wings and isn't purely magical.

Melee combat against many enemies at the same time, by the way, should be much more dangerous than if you fight them one at a time – and one should also gain more experience from it. The picture of someone cutting through a host of enemies while hardly getting hit is quite heroic, but not very believable. If you assume that you don't get hit because you deflect your enemies' blows with your own weapon, you should only be able to defend against a limited number of foes at a time, probably based on your fighting prowess. A typical mage might only be able to use his staff against one enemy's attacks, a skilled fighter would perhaps be able to deflect the weapons of three enemies – unless magically hasted. All other enemies in close combat range should get a considerable bonus on their attacks. Of course, a hit wouldn't necessarily cause damage if your opponents can't penetrate your diamond armour, but they might still be able to send you to the ground, making it easier again to hit you or to use some nasty special attack on you.

Something I'd also really like to see in combat is intelligent foes who know how to use the available tactical options, however they may look like, to their advantage. In my eyes, it's better to have a smaller arsenal of skills and spells which the AI can handle than a larger range of abilities most of which are never used by any computer-controlled creature or character – or if so, only in a random or stupid manner.

If the player character becomes famous, intelligent enemies might develop countermeasures to tactics he/she is known to use often. They might focus on his/her vulnerabilities if they are able to discover any; differing enemy behaviour would also increase the replayability. They should take cover when being attacked from the sky without having ranged weapons. And many should try to flee if they realize they don't stand a chance against the player character. Most living beings aren't very fond of the prospect to die at the hands of someone who has just easily killed several of their comrades. Simple undead would be a notable exception; orcs and some human fighters might be if they believe that defeat equals dishonour, but death in battle is honourable. And since we just touched it: The various races and factions of the game should be deeply embedded in a rich background of cultural traditions and philosophies.

well yeah something comparable to knights with lances might work, but air to air it would be quite a distance to fall. So you can't ever lose and live to tell.
(but I guess that wouldn't be a problem)
So wich one do you prefer ? Unless we aren't the flying creature ourselves we really shouldn't be able to control it as well.
Or maybe like in Zelda OoT (forgot what it was like in the other zelda games)
we can control the horse (flying creature) easily when riding or in this case flying(wasd+mouse, also for height).
But you can't really see what you are doing when drawing your bow and riding the horse
(you can look left and right, while as you were the flying creature looking left and right would be alot harder).
And you can still control the horse as you are using the bow, but for example when there's a wall in front of you.
Your creature shouldn't be dumb enough to just keep flying towards the wall to hit it with its head.
So I would want to be able to give the creature a mind of its own.
Targetting might work when going after one single enemy just telling your creature to follow that target but still use manual aim for bows, fire balls, etc...
Personally I would want the flying rely on wings (dragon or not) I'm not really in favor of the superman flying style.
So I would want the speed to increase when diving and to lose speed when going up.
Thats only assuming the other enemys would stay off your back when attacking a group.
One way could be to lure them one by one but they really shouldn't be this dumb.
(There could be a specific dumb kind of creatures that would let this happen, but not all creatures should be this dumb)
But as I mentioned, in gothic 3 attacking different enemys sometimes had to be done because different enemys were attacking you.
You wouldn't be able to fight them one by one because you would be dead in no time. At least it was this way for me. So more a defensive counterattack style of fighting would be required.
Unless you could use very high speed to your advantage and fly through them (in the same way as the knights with their lance) and just hit the enemys with your lance/spear or whatever. Maybe you would pass them so that they could only attack your left side and thus making defending yourself alot easier.

Or how about the way guild wars does this ? there are plenty of skills but you can only take some (8) with you. The same goes for your enemys (weaker creatures usually have less).
I wouldn't want my enemys to live to tell about my fighting style.
But maybe as I am fighting the more intelligent creatures, they would learn from my attacks and won't make the same mistake twice.
About the fleeing that depends on the situation, because I can imagine that dieing from my hands would be better for them than dieing from their bosses hand.
(Has even been done by humans so why not in a RPG world). But once their boss is dead and they know they don't stand a chance, they might run.
But I agree that[color:"orange"] The various races and factions of the game should be deeply embedded in a rich background of cultural traditions and philosophies. [/color]
So they shouldn't all stay because they feared their boss (or stay for honour).

Well I guess this is just our different opinion not much else to say about it.(But what you said was assuming one tried to run from the attack more as both trying to take on eachother)
ok thanks, I didn't know.(or I forgot <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />) Anyway I really hope the dragons will be very different depending on our character choices. At least different looking.
Well personally I'm really against auto-aim attacks (only curses or similar type of attacks or charm spells or the like should be without aim, imo). I do understand that some people would want to be a fearsome fighter without having to time their every move and learn some combos or whatever. But I don't like fighting like that.
But now that I can assume we are gonna be dragons, I can also assume the dragon won't be holding any spears or lances or something similar.
(and being a dragon without some really cool skills would be kinda lame)
I guess the only way to keep us both (and prolly more people too) happy is to be able to enable some sort of auto attack. I don't mean you don't have to do anything when fighting, but just that the non-auto attack would require timing and fast button pressing and enable some skills as combos. While in the auto-attack mode you wouldn't need to have that timing or fast button pressing ability since the computer would just use the same attacks but automatic. Offcourse this doesn't mean that fighting is gonna be dull. The way I see it there should still be some skills (6 or 8 or something) that can be used by the numeric or function keys.
(so much in the same way guild wars does it) these skills would be different when we are a dragon and some would be better for air to air and some better for air to ground. (example: I think fire breath would be better for air to ground as for air to air. Since on the ground there are less ways to escape from the fire)

I guess I understood you wrong. Offcourse that would be better from a strategic point of view. But as I think I said before, for example in Gothic 3 I really had to hit different enemys as they would all come for me and I couldn't really choose who to attack. And to me this makes sense since those enemys would prolly be working together and won't let you take out one of them without them all attacking you. It was more fighting them off, keeping myself safe and counterattacking.
But now that I can assume we will be the dragon ourselves I need to rethink the matter. Because the kind of skills used need to be very different now for the combat system I want.


Yes you attack them one at a time, but more as one attack against this enemy and then the next attack against another enemy since he came dangerously close.


I wouldn't want it to be heavily biased towards melee fighting, although this is often (or always for as far as I know) the case. Our opinions differ abit too much I guess, but what about the option to enable auto-attack ? (It would take some time balancing it out, but I think it could be done, it will not be easy to make it work though)

It uses manual aim and doesn't require you to target your enemys. But it was more for the melee type of attacks that I referred to Gothic 3. I do want manual aim and I do not want to target enemys (with again the exception of some skills/spells).

Offcourse dragons should have spells (if we are gonna be the dragons ourselves) I wouldn't mind trying to click on a moving target while the focus of my screen is changing. But you assume that all spells/skills would require you to select a target and I wouldn't like that.

Well no need to go into this any further since I can assume we will be the dragons ourselves.

The same goes for our plain old ground to ground attacks, why would it be different for air to air or air to ground. You can get close because it is biased, else some fast running ranged attack user could always just hit, run abit hit again, run abit,... with you just running behind it staying out of reach. I don't see why this is suddenly different in air to air.

Offcourse you forgot my ability to summon a trampoline <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />.
But well I'll just assume we are the dragons ourselves untill larian tells us otherwise.
Well you could be right and maybe I didn't think it really through before I made this comment. That doesn't change however that I still don't like auto target and auto aim. The whole fighting could be done differently since I'm assuming that we are the dragon ourselves now.

Again I guess the only way to keep us both happy is to give people a way to bypass the manual fighting system with just one click in the options menu.
This would prolly make the game harder for the people that prefer manual fighting systems but I wouldn't mind.
Flying only changes one thing for me, we have an extra dimension to move in.
When being the dragon I would just use wasd to keep the horizontal movement as we are used to on the ground. And use to mouse to control the flying and the targetting/aiming. One button could be used to toggle between fly mode/target mode.

Ok sorry about saying that. But I guess I got alittle bit frustrated because I wasn't able to explain my opinion properly.

In most traditional RPGs flying creatures were limited for balancing reasons, to allow for melee only characters. Adding the ability to fly (especially with a creature having a natural ranged weapon in a lot of mythology) and keeping all the same limitations and restrictions seems like a waste of potential. Why fly if you are fighting the exact same types of monsters with the same behaviour as you were on the ground?


Thinking about this some more, melee only dragons wouldn't necessarily force ranged weapons to be restricted as much as they traditionally have. Any flying creatures with ranged attacks would have to be in areas inaccessible to the character in human form, though, unless there was enough cover to protect them.
Effective ranged attacks would make melee dragons have to attack fast (dive from above, grab something, kill it and break away before hitting the ground), use surprise (sun/clouds as cover, or some kind of stealth magic) or brute force (frontal attack trying to avoid as much as possible, using a magical shield or possibly even picking something up and carrying it to protect against attacks from below).

There would still have to be limits to the number of creatures in a group with ranged attacks. In some cases perhaps attacking the leader first would cause the rest to scatter, giving you time to go after some of them before they could regroup.



Speaking of picking things up as a dragon, it would be cool to be able to grab stuff (trees, boulders, cows...) to carry somewhere and drop on an opponent. Of course the environment would already have to be at least partly movable and destructible for anything like this to be implemented.

Well yeah what I said was just about the melee type of char mounted on a dragon. And eventhough I responded to most of the posts by saying ok its different since we are the dragons, I felt the need to go into this subject further. If we are the dragon offcourse we need at least the dragons fire breath. But if we aren't and the dragons are used as mounts, it would have to be balanced just as it would be on the ground. Picking stuff up as a dragon and dropping them elsewhere could be something really nice to implement. But I would want the dragon to be able to pick up ground enemys as well fly high with them and dropping the enemy inside another group of enemys (or just on the ground) or maybe eat them <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
And I would want the dragons to have some more magical skills too.

btw: what kind of dragons are we thinking about ?
I have a link to Wikipedias dragon website here. But if anyone knows a better website please give us (or me) the link.

And what do you think about the option about the manual attack that with one click in the options menu is turned into an auto attack ? (as described in my previous post)
Do you think this might work or isn't that kind of auto-attack the kind you want.
As for controlling the dragon, maybe left click would be an attack with the claws, right click the fire breath, both mousebuttons to grab an enemy or object. And maybe some simple combinations will give some other attacks or different claw attacks.

About the appearance of the dragons(if you transform in the dragon, not as a mount): I think that it should resemble your 'reputation' a bit. Like an evil character would change in a Black Dragon with little holes in its wings(like Illidan in Warcraft 3:TFT), and Paladin-like charactes maybe some sort of Golden Dragon with some sort of shining aura, or make it completly adjustable, like when you get the 'skill' to change into a dragon, be able to choose how it looks: its colour, its wings, its size, type of head, maybe with some attributes like strength, speed, intelligence. Strength would increase the damage, Speed would increase the dragons maximum Flying/Turning speed, Intelligence increasing manapool so the dragon can cast more magical attacks(maybe something like 'Firestorm' so that a whole area is set on fire, or 'Devour', picking up an enemy and slowly devour him while you regain health)
If the dragon would be a mount, i think it would be cool to first get some sort of egg that hatches, and after that it grows in physical size every time it levels up, and at a certain point it would be big enough to actually mount it so you can fly with it.
If there would be henchman/partymembers, how would they follow you if you mounted a flying creature/changed into a dragon? would they also have flying mounts/Dragon Form? Or does this mean there will be no party members?
And if you would be able to change into a dragon, it would also afect the 'map-system'. Like if you use these 'gates', how are you going to make the borders inpassable, as mountains or trees can no longer limit a flying creature, it just needs to fly higher to get over them.

I like both the ideas, I always enjoy having pets <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
But I guess it would be cooler to transform into the dragons ourselves.
Make us able to make baby dragons <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />
maybe the flying over the mountain (or forrest) would be the area with little to no gameplay to stream out one level and stream in the next. We have been told we would get the feeling it would be one big seamless world. (or did I get it wrong ?)
But well pets haven't really come to the discussion, who would want to be able to have pets and who wouldn't ?
I would like them, but there are other things far more important to me than being able to have pets. (A fighting system I like for example, or the option to play peacefull, but since we are going to be dragons peacefull is out of the question)
But basicly pets are like party members. And I wouldn't want everyone to just being able to change into a dragon (so the party members/henchman shouldn't be able to do that) and I would leave them behind <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />. because I don't want to have a party all the time.

[color:"orange"]well yeah something comparable to knights with lances might work, but air to air it would be quite a distance to fall. So you can't ever lose and live to tell.[/color]

Some people in the real world have fallen from great heights without being killed, so falling in a fantasy world shouldn't result in automatic death, but in some serious damage, depending on the height. And there could be spells like Feather Fall to reduce or prevent falling damage.

Even if the player character can transform into a dragon, there could be opponents who ride flying steeds. DD had dragon riders, although they didn't really fly, so why shouldn't they appear in the next game, this time in the air?

[color:"orange"]So wich one do you prefer ? Unless we aren't the flying creature ourselves we really shouldn't be able to control it as well.[/color]

I'm not sure which method of controlling a flying steed I'd prefer, though if the player character simply transforms into a dragon, it doesn't matter. I guess if we get to mount a flying steed, I could like both ways – either fully controlling it or having the computer control it based on some settings.

[color:"orange"]I wouldn't want my enemys to live to tell about my fighting style.[/color]

Even great fighters can't always get what they want. Assume there are three enemies left when they decide to run. If they are clever enough to run in different directions, at least one might escape and live to tell about your fighting style, especially if you don't have ranged weapons. And there could always be some uninvolved on-lookers who can't keep their mouths shut. Would you kill them as well?

If the game uses a reputation stat again, people might recognize you once you become famous. In this case, I think it's reasonable to assume they would know a bit more about you than just how you look. And if some details about your fighting style became known, your enemies would be foolish not to react accordingly. Of course, there could also be a way to play the game without acquiring either fame or infamy.

[color:"orange"]About the fleeing that depends on the situation, because I can imagine that dieing from my hands would be better for them than dieing from their bosses hand.[/color]

Some might think that way, but if you have just killed 80% of an enemy group, the remaining ones could still try to run and escape both your wrath and that of their boss (starting a new life far, far away and all that). They might also surrender. As far as I can remember, no enemy ever surrendered or tried to run in DD. Adding this option would be a way to present enemies not just as targets to gain XP from, but as living beings who have their own goals and ambitions – particularly if you can talk to them after they've surrendered.

I also think you should get XP for defeating enemies, and those who flee or surrender count as defeated. Of course, you wouldn't get their equipment if they manage to flee, but you could ask or force those who have surrendered to hand over all or some of their possessions.

[color:"orange"]and being a dragon without some really cool skills would be kinda lame[/color]

Old dragons are usually depicted as being very powerful. It would be hard to find adequate challenges for them. I think the mere possibility of playing an old and powerful dragon involves a certain risk; it might either become boring (if fighting is just a matter of choosing which of your super-powerful skills you use this time) or it might feel "un-dragonish" (if a handful of standard archers are able to shoot a dragon from the sky). And if you just fight against whole armies or against one human Siegfried-style mega-champion after the other, it would be hard to write a background story that keeps up to those challenges.

If the player character really transforms into a dragon, it might be better to have him become a young and inexperienced one or even a hatchling, without any powerful skills. This dragon might still need to learn how to breathe fire and how to use those mighty attacks that make people fear older dragons. Its scales might still be soft, so standard archers would be a danger not to be ignored. I think this would provide more interesting challenges, at least if you are able to transform early in the game.

[color:"orange"]Speaking of picking things up as a dragon, it would be cool to be able to grab stuff (trees, boulders, cows...) to carry somewhere and drop on an opponent.[/color]

I like this idea. It would be a nice way to add some variety to a dragon's attacks.

[color:"orange"]If there would be henchman/partymembers, how would they follow you if you mounted a flying creature/changed into a dragon? would they also have flying mounts/Dragon Form? Or does this mean there will be no party members?[/color]

Older dragons should be strong enough to carry several human-sized beings. If just the player character is able to transform into a young dragon, it might be necessary to leave other party members behind and to pick them up once you change back into human form. But who knows – maybe you want to keep your dragon nature a secret anyway? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />

[color:"orange"]who would want to be able to have pets and who wouldn't ?[/color]

I'd prefer to have party members I can talk to, but if that's not possible, the option to have pets you can summon and/or train would be nice. It's not a must-have for me, though.

I like them surrendering better as fleeing.
I could agree with this if at the end of the game we could still have fun fighting with the full grown dragon even if it is too strong. (Because whats the point playing an entire game getting stronger and stronger and by the time you have some nice skills you can't do anything with them). But anyway there could be enemys that are challenging for a full grown dragon too, maybe using magic or something.

That would be cool, like you get the form at a rather early point in the game, but it's still weak, your dragon form would only know about 2-5 skills and by gaining xp, your dragon form becomes stronger, being able to use more powerfull attacks.
And if it would be confirmed that we would be the dragon by one of the Larians, we could think of some skills! Like I remember this skill from LotR: Battle for Middle-Earth 2 that made a dragon flap it wings above a certain area, and everyone beneath it was trown away into the air and fell back on the ground, taking damage and being stunnend for a few seconds. that would be a really cool skill to use on archers and such, and especially usefull for young dragons(because their scales are still soft).
Ofcours if the dragon changes in appearence, will it only be it's size? or will it show signs of aging? but what is the point of creating a dragon with a certain color, certain wings,... if it becomes tottaly different after a few levels?

Lepel;
[color:"orange"]And what do you think about the option about the manual attack that with one click in the options menu is turned into an auto attack ? (as described in my previous post)[/color]

That would be fine if it can be done with a reasonable amount of effort and without effecting the game balance too much.

Contrary to your earlier comment, I think manual fighting might make things easier. If fights are decide based on the player's coordination and reflexes their character wouldn't need as much agility, for example, so could boost constitution more.


[color:"orange"]Do you think this might work or isn't that kind of auto-attack the kind you want.[/color]

In principle all that is required is a micromanaged fight system where you can choose to disable targeting and have the computer control aspects of your own character's fighting.

In practice, however, a micromanaged fight system implies a single character game with fewer, stronger opponents, alone or in small groups. A non-micromanaged fight system is more flexible and better allows for party members, pets, larger groups of opponents, etc. I think the choice of combat system will have a much broader impact than a box to check in the options.



Isorun;
[color:"orange"]If there would be henchman/partymembers, how would they follow you if you mounted a flying creature/changed into a dragon? would they also have flying mounts/Dragon Form? Or does this mean there will be no party members?[/color]

Reasonably I think a single dragon is more likely. If there is a party they may transform with you, you they may get left behind. If there is a single character with summoning dolls, the dolls may be necessary to the transformation, assuming it is due to some external power or artifact.


[color:"orange"]And if you would be able to change into a dragon, it would also afect the 'map-system'. Like if you use these 'gates', how are you going to make the borders inpassable, as mountains or trees can no longer limit a flying creature, it just needs to fly higher to get over them.[/color]

There can be mountains higher than a creature can fly; even with magical assistance dragons have wings, so must requires some level of air pressure to be able to fly. Some locations could be underground or underwater, preventing a dragon from entering. Some regions could have a magical barrier or a weapon effective against dragons, forcing you to enter as a human and do some sabotage before being able to enter as a dragon.

You may be transforming into a dragon only in some kind of spirit world or alternate realm, which may or may not be connected with Rivellon. In this case, if there is a one to one correspondence between the two places, perhaps areas in the dragon world that match places in the human world which you have not explored yet could be covered in a dense, impenetrable fog.

A separate (but connected) dragon and human world would make game balancing easier, though would make for less of a seamless world and could make the dragon aspect seem 'tacked on', depending on how it is implemented and integrated into the story. If everything takes place in Rivellon there would need to be limits on when you could transform or where you could go as a dragon. Perhaps you would only be able to transform for a limited amount of time at first, and that would increase as you leveled.

that might be a problem, but that could be fixed, attach agiltiy to some sort of delay times between attacks, or recovery time from attack to the next attack. Or make the agility need of weapons kinda high so that players that want an agile knight and the weapons that come with it, should boost agility anyway.

Well I don't really agree with that. Because in Gothic 3 and in Guildwars there are both big groups of enemys as well as small groups. And since I want a combination of both fighting systems I can't see why there suddenly should be less enemys. Maybe guildwars makes a party work since they don't really use potions but you depend on your own magic/skills or on your teams magic/skills. But the Gothic 3 "party" system sucks. Or maybe it was just the poor AI.

I don't know why this thought suddenly popped into my head, but if you let NPC's talk (with eachother) please don't make their conversations so weird and annoying. In oblivion and gothic 3 I often felt like killing those NPCs just so they would shut up.

Oh and btw Lar if/when you read this, could you give us a hint about something so we would have more to discuss about. Because I think that unless new people (with a different opinion)get involved in the discussion there is not much left to say about the fighting system. (So either in what direction you are planning to go with the fighting or just a different subject).