Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Beta Worried about close combat lack of complexity

First off, I love the general feeling so far. Just walking around in the city is amazing. Haven't seen anything like it since Ultima 7!

When it comes to the combat however, I'm a bit worried.

Is there flanking? Will there be flanking? If there is, the UI doesn't show it (at least I didn't see it).

What does absorb mean? I'm guessing it's the armor, but couldn't it please instead say what type of armor I'm fighting against?

I'm hoping that, for example, chain armor will absorb more cutting damage (swords), but less piercing (arrows), and plate armor will absorb blunt (clubs)?

And does blunt damage have a higher chance of knocking people off their feet or perhaps stunning them?

Also, are there polearms and spears with longer reach, but perhaps a disadvantage up close?

There seems to be no aggressive or defensive stances? The new guard ability doesn't seem to increase parry chance?

I could go on, but I hope you get my point...

Right now, the game seem to have excellent amounts of abilities with various interesting effects, and a lot of magic. But when it comes to actual hand to hand combat, I really hope that is something that the developers haven't gotten to yet and that it will be greatly fleshed out in upcoming updates!

There is flanking in the game already. A -10 defense penalty per character around one character. It does show up on the UI.

Absorb does mean armour, it means that much was resisted harmlessly.

There don't seem to be stats for resistances to different types of physical damage. I'm not sure if that's coming or not. Perhaps they didn't add that because it would overcomplicate combat?

Not sure about blunt weapons.

Weapons do have different reach distances, but I don't think there's penalties for being too close with polearms.

I'm not sure if there is flanking in the sense that you must be properly positioned, but the game does allow for backstabs as well as penalties for defense when next to multiple opponents.

The game does also have blunt, sharp, etc weapons, as well as defenses against those types of attacks. Blunt weapons are more effective against the undead, where as blades are better on zombies. Armor can have bonuses to blunt, piercing, or slashing attacks.

Some blunt weapons do have a small chance of knocking opponents down. You have to examine the weapon tooltip, as it will have the chance listed whenever that happens to be the case. Some types of melee weapons have a higher critical hit chance, or more critical hit damage, cost less action points to use, etc.

There are stances for melee types that allow you to sacrifice accuracy for extra damage. There are also skills that will improve your ability to dodge or lower your defense penalties when flanked.

Stabbey types faster than me.

If what you guys say is in the game, is actually in the game, then the presentation of it and the UI needs to be much better, because right now, combat feels very, very basic because the information about what is going on isn't really there.

I mean, when I run up to the side of a foe and try to attack, I still only get a single percentage as info regarding what will happen.

A lot of info is already there, e.g. if a person is flanked it's shown as a debuff. I think it's pretty intuitive as it is at the moment.

There are no side attacks. If there is no one within melee range with you, you cannot flank.

I did recommend an indication to be added for feedback about the proper backstab position. I don't think that's in yet, but I haven't tried it.

Maybe warrior should have a skill that make them 'flank aware' so flanks are less likely (or less penalty) ? pardon me if such a thing exist and I did not see it. I mention it for warrior (or way of warrior) because they are more likely to be flanked in hand to hand combat than range characters.

There's a talent that reduces your penalty when being flanked. I think it's called "Sidewinder".

Finally saw the flanking symbol floating above the monsters who were flanked.

But I accidentally ended up with my back towards an enemy and he didn't seem to get any hit bonus for attacking me from a blind spot (or again, the UI didn't show it at least).

Do people who have played more than me consider the combat to be sufficiently deep?

Only daggers grant bonus damage from attacking from the back. Enemies can use that too, but only enemy rangers use daggers so far, and they mostly only attack from the front (but they can inflict bleeding with normal status effects).

Yes, the combat seems sufficiently deep. There are Talents such as Bully that let you take advantage of negative status effects on enemies to inflict extra damage