Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General 12 ways to improve turnbased RPG combat

So who do you adress with this?

And I don't get the point of your post (apart from nitpicking about my wording of "broken"). I never doubted that the game should be like the devs envisioned it....

I like some of the suggestions here.

Here's my 2 cents-
Don't have the combat focus on potion chugging. In the videos I saw so far you didn't even need AP to go into the inventory and chug an HP potion. That's bad stuff!

Hope it was only because of pre-alpha.

Everything written on the Internet is an opinion. That's a fact.


Of course there is no golden way. It was not the intention of my original post to provide a golden way. But there is a plethora of possible different gameplay elements that could make up a good game -- or not. The author of that article tried to compare different, in his opinion fun, games with turn based combat, and described singular features that he thought made turnbased combat fun. Talking about those helps to get an idea about what's possible from a gameplay perspective. If it's too complex, you can simplify it. If it serves no purpose in the game from one perspective or another, depending on what you want to do, you can scratch it. If it's unclear to the player, provide feedback of some sort.

The author even mentioned that if a game did have all those features, it would probably be too complex.

I always find it amusing how some people feel the need to boast about their lack of literacy. Most people learn how to differentiate subjective and objective statements by the age of 10 or so. We're not impressed.

I'd like to see a grid overlay for combat, personally. Makes it easier to judge distance. I agree that it should be optional, though.

I'd love to see an optional grid system that's only get highlighted when used, and which can be dragged tile by tile. Here's a sweet example from Wasteland 2 gameplay footage, but they of course use hexes instead:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9hQWqtxXPU#t=05m30s

I have to commend InXile for having made it so nice and thin that it barely breaks immersion when it's used.

Yeah, but the author also mentioned (in another article) that he doesn't like BG combat style. But personally, I LOVE BG combat style, in my opinion it's one of the best combat experiences ever in a CRPG.

In my opinion the author mingles P&P rulesets and CPRG rulesets which is always a fatal idea. CRPG shouldn't be like P&P games and they can't be.

Turn-based combat in CRPGs is in itself already the closest system to any board game or P&P game which is already a decision towards systems instead of immersion. I like that in some games (like in D:OS) but it shouldn't be driven to the extreme. That's the reason why I don't like a grid on the floor for example. A grid puts systems above immersion. That's not what I want to see in a CPRG tbh....

Yes i agree gird should be optional.

Another thing i would point out is that environment must be made useful in combat -i dont want Kings Bounty or similar games approach where there is just a battlefield and basically u just walk from left to right use spells different attacks and thats it.
I want that every battle has different ways to approach that every enemy has at least two attacks (one ranged/magic one melee) so that they will be able to use environment effectively as well. Why there always has to be skeleton archer and skeleton swordsmen when there could be just one skeleton warrior who could use environment and make the best AI can with weapons available. Why not use rocks and trees as cover and make it possible to fire from cover. Why not make special talent to recognize enemies ahead and lure them into the trap instead of just always bumping in each other and then stand face to face and throw at them all u can.
I would really like to see that DOS goes in more tactical way instead of "powerful magic and bigger sword", what seems to be the case now.
Another thing i want is that magic should be costly but still very useful, thats why i dont like what Swen and David were doing in these presentations - spamming magic i mean sure it looks cool but it gets soo boring after some time. Using mana potions, rageneration potions all the time completely brakes all tactic approaches in battle - makes them irrelevant because magic is so powerful. I cant remember single encounter that they didnt use at least some magic .... so this says enough.

Sry for all grammar mistakes - im not native english speaker but i hope i made my opinion clear.

@ Fanest
Swen and David used magic in the presentations because

1)they wanted to show the environmental effects and magical combination
2)melee skills are not implmented in the actual build of D:OS
3)balancing is in pre-alpha status and magic/melee are not well balanced yet (melee is too weak)

I know that but when i heard Swen comments about regenerating mana (theme worthy of another topic) i became worried that this game might take another way and become Magicka like turn based game with obvious magic spamming everywhere. As much as this sounds fun i actually dont like it and imo is not the right way for DOS.

Now im not against mana reg. but i really would like a more tactical approach in battles with good chance of u dying because thats what can make every fight a good challenge and fun.

I hope that the scenary for turn based combat will contain more elements. in the demos the combat was mostly on big open spaces without much scneary like trees or buildings or walls, which would imho add to the overall tactical posibilities alot (Hide behind a wall to force archer walk around it...)

Just 1 thing.. Do NOT go easy on the players.. What i hope to see is Dragon Age origins diffifulty, where even on normal you have a tough time unless you think logical and tacticly. Nowadays there are already enough games that need to be set to "nightmare" difficulty before actually being a real game instead of a boring no-resistance cinematic walkthrough

They can just have a mode called, "I'm a hero".
Or like the button mashing mode equivalent in Bayonetta. I don't see why not have a mode for people who enjoy instant gratifying pwns them all mode.( Easier level up, less action point for doing things, getting biased rolls, higher chance for better loot. Of course they can't bring those to normal mode, nor does normal loot to hard mode. )

Actually it's usually a good way to welcome new players, even Ninja Gaiden series have a easy mode for newbie players. Once they got hooked and think it's easy, maybe they will try normal mode. That's how people got into some of those difficult games in first place.


And Larian can always crush their souls in normal mode.

I am guessing this probably won't happen, either because of unpopularity or because it just goes against the design they had in mind, but I would like to see a time limit per character's turn so you can't just spend forever thinking about your next move. Something like a timer that ticks down so long as the active character is standing still and is not already currently performing an action like moving or attacking.
One of the features about a lot of turn-based systems that always bugs me is how "relaxed" a fight can feel when you have all the time in the world to plan your next move(s). It starts to feel too little like glorious battle and more like a casual chess match. Now maybe that's what many would prefer in this sort of game, but I like the idea of having to mix tactical planning with "thinking on your feet" and an active-time component would really help with that.
Not getting my hopes up, though. (But, I wonder if it would be possible with modding...)

A slider to increase or decrease both enemy and player movement and attack animation speed (separately) would be very welcome. Perhaps an option to press and hold a certain button to speed up the movements of everything. It's for those times when you get attacked by a group of easy enemies and it's a foregone conclusion that you're going to win, it's just a matter of getting to them and hitting them.

Arkham - I think they did mention putting in a time limit for turns in multiplayer, that the host can set up (including setting no time limit).

A time limit for multiplayer is reasonable, but I don't think they should enforce one for the single-player game. If players want to spend a lot of time considering their moves, that's up to them. The whole point of turn-based combat is to allow players time to think and plan.

Apperantly we both played a diffrent Dragon Age Orgins.

sry dude but when i watched Bayonetta gameplay i though im gonna throw up .
I really hope that this wont turn to hack and slash face to face throw me all u can turn based RPG, cuz if that happen im gonna throw DOS through a closed window.

Fanest, what he meant was that there was a mode in Bayonetta that was purely for fun and required no skill. He was suggesting a similar mode for D:OS, for people that just want to explore and enjoy the story. He wasn't suggesting turning D:OS into a difficult action game.