Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Beta Combat Ideas

Wow, this thread sure became popular while I was away for the holidays :O

There are a lot of great ideas being tossed around and I'm really glad that the developers are paying attention to this since we all want the best and most enjoyable game possible regardless of any disagreements. I'll toss in my two cents about what could possibly be worked in.

[Mages] I have a few views on what's been said so far. I'm truthfully not a big fan of a reagent system because more often than not, I'll hold on to powerful and rare reagents and completely forget to use them. The next thing I know, the game's over and I'll go, "well I saved that for nothing." Due to the many, many items possible in the game, I can see that becoming the case for hoarders such as I. Plus holding on to a lot of reagents will just take away valuable inventory space from all the hundreds of pumpkin, bucket and cooking-pot helms that I'll be hoarding >:D

I do like the idea of Mages not being able to cast any "Armageddon-rated" spells until they set it up beforehand with status effects or whatnot. Like I've mentioned in my original post, the way elements interact with each other is such a cool and interesting system - why not build upon it and make it actually have a deeper purpose of setting up some really amazing big spells instead of tossing it away on basic one-time status effects such as a bit of burning or a momentary freeze/stun? Maybe even work this idea with the Warrior and Ranger attack skills where there needs to be prerequisites set up before they can do a powerful attack?

If that doesn't happen, I am also agreeable with the idea of a long cast-time for the bigger Mage spells that essentially takes him out of the battle for however long it takes to fully cast the spell. But to kick it up a notch - why not have the Mage be shifted to the highest threat/aggro level when they start to cast a major spell? I know, I know, people instantly think of MMOs when they think of the term "aggro" but in this case, it might actually be a neat idea. If you were in a fight with a group and you see a Mage start to cast some spell that has a lot of effects and is taking him or her forever to cast, would'nt you try your damnest to put an arrow through that Mage's head before they can pull off the spell? But won't that make the Mage super easy to kill if the enemies focus on him whenever he casts a major spell you say? Well that just means that this following class would have more of a use:

[Warriors] I think this class needs a bit of reworking so that he has a lot more mobility and taunting/tanking abilities. If they go with the earlier idea of a Mage needing to set up status effects before launching a big nuke spell, then perhaps the Warrior and the Ranger should have more tools and skills available to cause status effects in order for the Mage to slam it home with a big spell.

If they go with the later idea of threat-levels/aggro, the Warrior should be able to have more taunt abilities to distract any enemies so that the Mage has time to fully cast a big spell. I do also think that the Warrior should be highly mobile in order to be more useful on a battlefield and not get in the way of spells. I know that they already have a Rush ability, but there could be a lot more such as a longish-ranged leap slam attack, a low-AP-cost sprint, etc.

Anyway, forgive me if some of these ideas or spells/abilities are already in the game. I've only played roughly half of the alpha so I don't know if any of these ideas or skills are already in the game or not.