Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Suggestion: Optional Friendly Fire.

So in other words, Larian needs to create the perfect AI ;-) Get on that ForkTong!

I haven't played the alpha, is there much of a problem with NPCs stupidly walking into ongoing spell-effects and hazards? I can understand the desire for an option to turn off friendly-fire if that is the case, even if I would much prefer to just live with the occasional NPC facepalm moment. Besides, there's always save & reload.

Yeah, but what if you haven't saved for a while, or you're slogging your way through a massive battle? That'd suck.

The game has a quicksave button, so it shouldn't be a big deal to save often - even during the combat.

You can actually save during combat? Huh, that's quite cool.

another problem with turning FF off would be it opens up to exploits and rewards bad habits. "Those 6 goblins are all attacking my Tank. well I can just throw a fireball and win."

or

a situation emerges where you have to save some villages from some bandits. If you initiate combat the villagers will likely die so you have to use diplomacy...no wait my spells don't affect friendly or neutral things. FIREBALL!

if the "turning off" is optional, i don't see the problem.

Because you can't have 28,773,245 options for everything. Not everything will end up being moddable either. Some parts are simply core gameplay elements which are not suited for toggling. Friendly Fire is an critical part of the entire combat system. It is crucial for game balance, which means it is not possible to just turn it off and keep everything else the same.

I usually don't like Friendly Fire, however as long as the game lets me see who/what will be hit/effected by AoE spells then that's fine. By seeing who/what will be effected/hit, I then get to make the decision as to whether I I want to use that spell/skill or not.

My only hope is that the AI is also programmed to try and avoid any 'fields' that are in play - for instance, I believe one of the wizards skills drops a fire-field on the ground... so one would hope that npc characters would try and avoid it if they weren't in it already (unless they had no choice but to go through it).

I don't think FF is that critical. I know several games, where you can simply turn in on/off via options

IMO it is !! Targetting is in the fight system's core, defining who (or what) is hit by an AoE or is in the trajectory of an arrow, so to change that you should first check if the target is friendly or not and then decide if we deal the damages or not

ok now it's getting guessing... depending of he implementation it can get complicated, but mostly its a simple rule linked in the dmg-calculation

I agree, the modification of the code in itself should be pretty simple.

BUT I think the damage this "simple" option can do to the balance of the combat and the game is not so simple to measure and adapt...

Yes, but should people be enabled to nerf their own game?

I think it could be nice if friendly fire / no friendly fire was a property of the spells or the spellcaster. So you could have a spellcaster who has a 50% chance of not inflicting friendly fire, or you have a spell that is way less powerful than the normal version, but doesn't inflict friendly fire. So if you don't like friendly fire, just use your not-so-powerful spells.

The thing with just turning it on/off is it makes the game WAY less difficult (in general, don't know about this particular game). You have this death ray spell that shoots out in a cone. If you are hit with this, you die. You are in a heated battle with everyone lumped together in a small area. There are 10 enemies versus 3 of you. No friendly fire: just use your death ray. Friendly fire: You could just use your death ray, but then you'll kill two of your characters as well, and the enemies might not be affected by it. What to do, what to do...

@Robcat/Singbird: thats it - friendly fire is a simple question of "difficulty" and every player should be free to choose how difficult the he want to play.

I was a passionated Falcon4.0 player and I love to nerf my self with stupid rules, but this was my choice...

A simple option that is either separate or tied to the difficulty setting of the game would be somewhat easy to be able to turn on/off friendly fire.

So either a checkbox, or something like what was in Neverwinter Nights 'D&D Hardcore rules' which allowed FF, while 'normal' didn't.

I personally would prefer this to be an option presented at the beginning of the campaign, rather than a toggle option for whenever you want, so that when we make our own modules, we'll be able to provide that option as well, and/or force it to be enabled.

I dont see why people would want to disable it. its just part of the kind of game it is in my opinion. If we go like that, why not put an option in to turn off turn-based combat to
Just let mods add that option or at least make sure the option is normally automaticly on when someone starts the game.
If people start this like a new game and then immediatly get asked if they want to turn off friendly fire.. there is a chance they might pick yes and miss 50% of the game's fun :P

Some people are tactically inept and/or just want to bulldoze everything (except for their own people). What's fun for you might not be fun for other people. Friendly fire is an option, turn-based combat isn't, simply because the engine was developed and modified to use turn based combat, and that's what this game is. Players shouldn't have to mod the game for something that should inherently be a feature of the game.

I have mixed feelings; on the one hand it should be not too difficult to add such an option; on the other hand friendly fire is a fundamental part of the game (as it was with nwn and bg). I personally would not use such an option (unless it turns out i was totally stuck without such an option which i suppose might be possible since I am totally inept) but conversely does it hurt to add it to those who absolutely demand to play in such a fashion ?
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One could argue that it does hurt since it dilutes the developer vision but to be honest such a thing is really up to the developer so I think perhaps we should leave it at those who want such a feature to request it and the developers can then consider it. I see no real value in arguing against such an option since (a) it probably does not take too much effort and therefore hurt development of other aspects of the game and (b) it is the developer decision and hopefully they will comment one way or the other (c) and the developers could label the option to make it clear that this is not how the game was intended to be played so those others who wish to play it the 'intended' way know not to use the option which hopefully removes their objection to the option

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One aspect I can see (from the request) is that if people cannot have a good time playing with friendly fire is perhaps try to understand what aspects of the tactics are too difficult for people to grasp.
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For the record I see no need for the option but I am trying to remember if nwn or bg 2 had such an option; I think maybe one of them did - maybe it was nwn ?

Baldur's Gate 2 had Friendly Fire for sure. For NWN though, it was optional. On easy and normal difficulty, friendly fire (from fireball) wouldn't affect your teammates. But if you went up to D&D Hardcore, or the next difficulty up (forgot what it was), then friendly fire was enabled fully.