Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Big problems with elemental surface damage.

I could very well be wrong, but I suspect a simplistic, repetitive generic behavior is being applied across all the elemental surfaces - e.g. "do what you do with each AP spent on movement", so ice attempts to knockdown, electricity attempts to stun, fire attempts to burn, goo attempts to poison, etc.

While it makes sense for some of the elements like ice and electricity, fire and poison shouldn't share the same behavior.

This was my first thought as well.

If we actually want to go all realistic about this, the characters shouldn't spend too many running steps getting out of the burning surface. People in real life don't run in half-meter steps like the imbeciles in the game. Especially if something under your feet is burning. You take big leaps of two meters maybe.

I think a better way out of this would've been to intensify the burning/poisoning the longer you spend in the surface or cloud, instead of just keeping the same crappy mechanic and reducing the damage taken by moving. Then maybe I would have interesting tactical choices like "The longer I stay put here, the more damage I'll take. But I might be able to use this turn to kill that baddie. Maybe I can try shooting once and then moving a bit to the side... But if I miss, he attacks me and I still take more damage from the surface..."

Ugh. Again I get screwed by this "feature". An undead opponent positioned itself very close to Madora (who was also standing still on a toxic (poisoned) surface that has formed around her).

Madora's turn comes up and I have her take a swing at the opponent. The game decides I'm "too close" for this melee attack animation to play out properly and has Madora turn, take a step *away* from the target, and *bam* a load of poison damage is incurred from the movement.

Of course, whenever you take damage during a movement the game automatically stops your movement. Again I attempt to take my original swing at the opponent, and again the game decides I'm still "too close" for this melee attack animation to play out and has Madora move *away* again to complete the original step it forced her to take *away* from the target, before finally turning around to strike it, and.. again.. *bam* a load of poison damage incurred from the movement.

Best part, the swing misses. So in the process of attempting a single attack from melee range, Madora is penalized with "movement damage" from the poison twice, lost half of her health in the process, and dealt absolutely no damage to the opponent.

Whee.

I agree that the way it is currently can be pretty weird -- damage should be based on time spent, not movement.


Example 1: I cast Firefly in a straight line in an open field; an enemy crosses it perpendicular to the line, crossing the minimum amount of fire to reach me.

Example 2: I cast Firefly across where an enemy is standing, and they move away from it immediately on their turn.

Example 3: I cast Firefly across where an enemy is standing, and they stay in it during their turn (to attack, use items, save AP, or they were knocked down or stunned).

Example 4: I cast Firefly to fill in a choke point between lava patches. An enemy has to cross several meters of fire to reach me.


The way the game works: example 1 does damage once. 2 does damage twice. 3 does damage once, plus once more for every turn that the enemy remains in fire. 4 does damage once per "step" taken.

The way it should work: example 1 and 2 should do damage once. 3 and 4 should do serious damage, based on time spent in fire.

I think it's important, tactically, that example 4 do far more damage than example 1. But you shouldn't be able to stand around in fire casually because it's only going to tick once per round.

could do an end of turn check that looks at current surface and previous surface.

if currently on surface x damage.

if previously on surface that same turn x damage.

i like the damage on movement and i think it should be severe and punishing. the current mechanic provides to much incentive to standing in one spot. i think you should be punished MORE for standing in it then moving. however the movement aspect still needs to be punishing enough that its not worth moving through said surface to attack an enemy. ie: lower the moving damage to much and it makes it to easy to just rush right through the surface and attack a mob making elemental surfaces trivial in the combat dynamic.

Ok, I have a problem with this. Short of using a spell specifically designed with that intention (like an ice wall), elemental surfaces should not be physical barriers, only deterrents. When you make an elemental surface "not worth moving through .. to attack an enemy", you have essentially created a physical barrier.

And damage done from quickly moving across these surfaces should not be a particularly strong deterrent. Instead it should be time spent within the element that results in heavy damage that creates the deterrent. Now, if you can enter an element surface, kill a target, and move out of it in one turn before taking serious damage, that is not a problem with the elemental surface, that is a problem with NPC difficulty and/or character balance.

Now, I realize this isn't a huge problem later on when everyone is packing heavy elemental resistances (in fact, my understanding is that with enough resistance you can use these elemental fields as healing fields, which may explain why some people are reluctant to see this problem fixed), but in the early game where resistances are light, elemental damage is heavy, and party health is on the low side, this situation sucks. Especially with the undead, who are healing with every step taken as they move around all the poisonous patches on the battlefield.

use FIRE, it sounds like your just having trouble with the combat in general.

I'm not having trouble with combat, I'm having an issue with a mechanic that makes no sense. You are not "burning more" or being "re-poisoned" from taking steps over these surfaces. Damage needs to be incurred over time spent within them, not over distance walked.

The risk of slipping on ice with each step taken makes sense. The risk of being stunned with each step taken through an electric field makes sense. As does the risk of catching fire or being poisoned. Those are statuses, though. Damage per step does not make sense. The fact that movement through these surfaces can cause multiple heals when combined with the right resistances is, perhaps, even worse.

Guys, remember one thing - this is a game. Not real world. In real world if you're hit by the big boulder falling from the sky - you're dead. Stop making arguments like "it's unrealistic". Games are unrealistic, they were unrealistic, and they will be. Because they're games.


Think of DO:S like you think of chess. Sure, you can go whine "HETMAN IS OVERPOWERED, WHY IT CAN MOVE SO FAR AND PAWNS CAN'T??? KNIGHT SHOULDN'T BE ABLE TO JUMP ABOVE PIECES, HORSES CAN'T JUMP THAT HIGH - UNREALISTIC!!!!!". But this is a game. You're trying to win, using set of rules creators invented. Same logic applies to D:OS. Surfaces work as intended, they're dangerous, they force you to think, they can completely screw you. You don't like it? You want something more realistic? You want real physics? Turn off the computer, and go out to play in the real world.

Sitting still in fire/poison being harmless but walking through them can basically vaporize you isn't intuitive. Unintuitive things tend to bother people for pretty obvious reasons.

In this case it sounds like the actual intended word was unintuitive and not unrealistic.

However everything about D:OS is unintuitive and it's one of the weaker points of the game.

I think there should be a set amount of damage per round from being in fire/poison/electricity. (Separate from burning/poisoned effects, which take place at the beginning of your turn regardless.)

For every action that causes a character to spend or lose AP, they take a fractional amount of that round's damage at the beginning of that action.

If moving, it's applied at the beginning of each 1 AP worth of movement. If doing anything else, it's applied right before the action. Death will interrupt the movement or action. If the character is unable to act, they take the full round worth of damage.

Speed has the advantage of letting you run through fire faster, thus taking less damage compared to a slower character while crossing the same distance.


Ditto for chance to catch fire / become poisoned -- break it up fractionally according to AP usage.

That's fine and all, but not only do I think it's unrealistic and unintuitive, I also feel it highly unbalanced and a poor design. So my complaint is about the gameplay. Fields of fire and poison should be deterrents, not no-trespassing zones you can liter that battlefield with. That is far too powerful for how easy it is to create them.

Just so we're all on the same page, damage for standing (not moving) on a surface is applied the moment a character's turn begins, before any action from that character is taken. So, it's not possible to avoid damage by moving out of the impacted area quickly. Whether you clear the affected area within that turn or not, the damage has already been taken.

I only bring that up because I'm thinking you're concerned that characters may be able to completely avoid elemental damage by moving out of it quickly enough, and that just isn't the case.

My problem is with the additional damage taken through walking/running.

Actually it's just a tiny bit more complex than that. The damage from standing on a surface happens in exactly 1 round increments. As such, if you began standing on that during another character's turn (ie: They made the hazard) then the standing damage will happen when the character who made the hazard's turn starts.

That is to say if turn order is T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z and X creates a fire surface on top of T then T will not take fire damage at the start of their turn. If T chooses not to move they will take fire damage at the start of X's turn instead.

Because of this if you have a jump skill you can actually get out of a hazard zone before it lands a second tick on you. Just so long as it being under your feet was caused by another character.

You know, I tested this a few days ago because I thought I was also convinced it worked the way you're describing, but then when performing the test later I took damage on the turn of the character I was testing the field on.

However, I think I might have used that same character to create the damage field.

Well, you also need to make sure the person who has the hazard placed on them does not move during their turn. If they decide to move and take a moving damage tick then the hazard timing is changed to be on their turn if it wasn't previously.

this reminds me of shadowrun returns: dragonfall.

in the final stages of the game you fight gargoyles who explode in a poison cloud when they die. if you try to move out of it you take damage every single step and it can kill you. if you just stand still and remain in the cloud you take zero damage. derp da derp.

The most logical way to deal with surfaces, which I can imagine is this one:

The more time u spend on a fire surface, the more damage u get - if I stay in fire I should get more damage every second. If I move through fire I also it also takes me some time in fire, that means, I also should take some damage every second I'm burning. That's intuitive.

Every AP point is a symbol of a time unit. If I spend my action points on moving through the surface, I should take damage. If I move through fire, and my move takes me overall 5 seconds it's the same amount of damage as if I stayed 5 seconds in fire while doing something else (or doing nothing). So taking damage while moving through fire is intuitive. What's not intuitive is not taking damage while staying in fire, or using spells, abilities etc. in fire.

What should in fact be implemented, is damage from the surfaces like fire, while spending AP points on abilities while being on a fire surface and not just on moving through the surfaces.

If I move through the surface, it takes me 5 seconds = 5 AP, I should take the same amount of damage as if I cast a spell for 5 AP = 5 seconds in a surface.

The burning status itself should also triger damage when one moves out of a surface, because you burn for a time, when you move out of a burning surface.
For example it should punish you for using your AP points even if you aren't anymore on the burning surface. Because AP points are time, and if u spend some time burning... you take damage.
But it should punish you less... because you're only burning, and not burning and standing on the burning surface....

It's the most intuitive way to apply burning in a turn based combat in my humble opinion.


The problem occurs when we ask: "And what with the saved action points for the next turn?".

Well.... for me the easiest solution is just to interpret those pionts as always... if u save points for the next turn, u didn't use any action points... u don't take damage, because you didn't spend your time in fire (AP = time) - not yet... u just... hmmm moved yourself a little bit in time with your turn. But if u waste your points, by saving too much points than you can, you should get punished for it e.g.: If you have a maximum of 13 AP to store and in every turn you can get 7 AP, and you have already stored the maximum 13 AP point, and you click "Next Turn" button, then you should be punished for every wasted point... so in this example for 7 AP points that u waste just by standing in the surface, because those are those "overstored" points that were just wasted in the surface while doing nothing.
So standing in a surface counts only as a standing... if you really waste AP points in that way, that you can no longer use them in other ways, only then we can literally say about standing in fire and doing nothing - wasting your time in fire.

That's the most logic, intuitive, and the easiest to implement way of dealing with that problem that I can imagine (sorry for my English).

Of course after the end of combat , and getting out of a turn mode, everything should act normally as damage over time effect. That means based on the real time.

OP, I registered an account specifically to say I agree with you. In a way, I cannot believe this thread is so long. How is there so much argument with the obvious and reasonable things you are saying?? The way elemental damage works in this game is SEVERELY affecting my enjoyment. I'm used to having to "get out of the fire" in video games. In this game, it appears that you are supposed to stand in the fire.

DoTs such as burning and poison should be time-based, not action-based.

Also, exploding boars... makes no sense. A poisoned burning boar explodes every time I hit him. Wut!?

It's not exploding, it's releasing ooze (sludge poison, essentially) which is igniting when coming in contact with the fire.