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

I'm very strongly against reagents s well, it's a complex chore I could do without. I don't want to be lured into an argument because neither of us are going to change each others minds but that's where my voice is.

In general I don't like any system for restricting spells, outside of simple mana systems and short cooldowns. I'll only use restricted spells when I need them, and I almost never need them because I have broken time powers (quicksave/quickload).

Yeah, especially powerful scrolls could have Stat/Ability requirements on them, and while I'm not certain this is a good idea, maybe Scrolls AP cost should be equal to the spell's AP cost plus 1-3 additional action points. With that, the fact that they're one-time use and cost gold/luck to acquire should be enough to balance them.



That's one of the reasons why I find that system annoying, yes. EDIT: Specifically, needing to have certain amounts of 2-4 components to cast a spell. Typically that's the kind of thing found at random.



Which is something that you can do with the click of a button to your homestead? I don't see the meaningful difference. Neverwinter Nights 2 supposedly had a system like that, but in practice, you could just rest after every encounter.






I'm not a fan of reagents because it adds annoying complication for no real benefit. Instead of having to worry about one item, your mana potion supply, you have to worry about your supply of 10-20 or more different components, each of which is used for multiple spells in different combinations and amounts.

A scroll-based rare-spell system would have you carrying around more than one thing, yes, but a scroll is only used for one spell, and using it won't affect your ability to use other spells.

Again, why not both?

Nothing against having two systems... but having two systems to perform the same function is naturally, twice the work to implement and balance.

Neverwinter Nighs 2 (and pretty much all the recent D&D powered CRPGs) does not have rest areas. You can sleep wherever and whenever you want in that game. I'm talking about a game where you are supposed to find an appropriate place to rest. Again, this is not my favorite solution to the ability spam problem, but it's surely more functional than a long cooldown.




I'm not against your scroll-based rare-spell idea. Point is, reagent DO have benefits:

1) Unlike mana they aren't a universal resource; so using reagents developers can prevent high level spell spamming.
2) They fit the "use/interact/collect as much as you can" philosophy of this kind of games.
3) They add "color" to the magic system. Spells aren't just other kind of active ability with reagents. They are something different.

That being said, it seems that we will have different casting times for different spells in the new building. Which is good, an it's also a new starting point to discuss further additions (if needed).

Maybe so, but Original Sin has Inns, and a Homestead as your rest areas. But Waypoints, Teleporter Stones, and the "Teleport to Homestead" button can get you there so fast that it seems like reaching a rest area isn't going to be that hard.




I think we've reached a point where talking more isn't going to get us anywhere. We're not going to be able to agree on this issue, because I see 1) and 2) as drawbacks and irritations, not benefits.

We'll have to wait and see what the new build will do to try and balance things out more.

That was pretty obvious from the start. Quite unfortunate that thread about combat ideas turned into "what stabbey wants". Honestly you didn't propose much, you mostly opposed and repeated you want everything dumbed down. Oh well...

I am also pretty much against the reagents idea. You know i loved that aspect in Ultima back then, but that was different times.

I think there are a lot of possibilities for a resource system:
-> mana (regens out of combat, start full, depletes when spells are used)
-> rage (deplets out of combat, start empty, increases with damage taken and damage done, deplets when spells are used)
-> energy (start out full, deplets when spells are used, regens in combat, can only use one or two skills than have to wait )
-> combo points (alwayss zero wehen out of combat, certain actions award combo points, can be spent for certain spells)
-> steam (bar starts out empty, skill use fills bar, bar decays slowly, when bar is full overheat)
-> focus (bar starts out empty, some skill use fills bar, some deplete it)
-> runes (you have different colored runes (e.g. red, blue, green) instead of a bar, skills require color combinations (e.g. firesword need red rune to cast), when a rune is used after a certain amount of turns the rune refreshes)
-> etc.

At the moment all that DOS has are Action points which shouldn't be confused with a resource system. Action Points are part of the combat systems "turn", not the character spell&skill system. Although you can gain more action points they are not bound to a certain spell or skill.

The problem with an half classless system that DOS has at the moment is that it probably would need multiple resource bars on a character portrait when a character has skills of that domain.

For example a character who both has spells and ranger skills would have two bars: energy and mana.

Hi guys, I have just had an idea of how the player could be prevented from casting the "armageddon" spell in every 10HP goblin encounter. What if the number of the remaining cool-down turns would just carry over from one fight to the next? So, if you just cast the fireball and still have 3 turns of cool-down at the end of the one fight, then you have to wait three turns in the next fight before you can cast the fireball spell again. I think in that way, the spamming of powerful spells could be limited. So, what do you think?

Oh for -

Sorry that I post a lot. Yes, I'm just one person, and yet my voice seems disproportionately loud here.

I'm sorry that I don't like your idea, but it is not just because it didn't come from me. I've seen tons and tons of great ideas from other people. When I disagree with an idea, I try and give reasons why not.

Why haven't I put forth a lot of ideas on the combat system? Some of the ideas I have had I've posted in general feedback or the Attributes and Skills thread. Also, a lot of the balance problems have already been gone over a ton of times, and there's likely to be a big patch after the break that does a lot of balancing. Skills clearly do not have the appropriate Ability point or Character Level requirement to use, and some do too much damage.

- The standard resource mana used to be in the game, but was removed. That probably wasn't a decision made lightly, so it's unlikely to come back. It was replaced with cooldowns. I agree that currently cooldowns are inadequate. The encounters are spaced too far apart for cooldowns to be an issue for more than a single battle.

- I like the idea of spells needing one or more turns to charge. For spells that require two+ turns to charge, there should be a way for the caster to cancel charging, though. Maybe a tutorial message saying "To continue charging the spell, hit End Turn. Any other action will cancel charging the spell."

- Currently, Fighters often need to spend their first turn just reaching the nearest enemy - even if they are in the party lead, and ranged characters (and to a lesser extent speedy ones) can attack on their first turn. I've seen lots of suggestions from other people on how to deal with that, like decreasing the movement penalty on armour, but I don't have anything of my own to contribute to addressing that.
EDIT: I think maybe a general increase in the AP cost of spells compared to Fighters skills would help increase the mobility of Fighters and decrease that of ranged characters. AP costs could also maybe be adjusted based your levels in certain Abilities, although that sounds like trouble to balance.

- Fighters can hit enemies from two move points away, but closing to 1 move point away does not increase their chances to hit - it should.

- Fighters skills seem to miss a lot more than the tooltips suggest they should. Whirlwind's range is terrible and can usually only hit one enemy - even if the tooltip shows that more than one should be hit from that range. It probably is dependent on the weapon, with 2H one having longer range.

- The animations for some Fighter skills make them look more like magic than attacks. Flurry is an odd skill, instead of being a bunch of quick strikes with your weapon, a bunch of weapons fly up from the ground behind the fighter and strike at the enemy. (Also, Flurry requires point-blank range to hit). Stun summons a big rock to flatten an enemy. I suppose that's not really a problem, it does have the benefit of giving Fighters some flashy-looking attacks to compete with the flashy attacks of mages and rangers.

- Scrolls AP cost should probably be based on the AP cost of the underlying spell, possibly with an extra AP cost over that of skills on your skillbar - especially in the case of scrolls that are a higher level than the spell you've learned. I've seen "Level 8 Blitzbolt" scrolls, for instance.

- Combat difficulty is currently too low. Most encounters don't have enough enemies to pose a tactical challenge, and the western Cyseal combat zone needs two more combat encounters (maybe more, but two sounds right). There are large empty spots.

- Most enemies have few AP. Enemy mages in particular tend to only have 5 AP, enough to move or attack, but not both, meaning they spend a lot of their turns moving and not casting spells. The Skeleton Bomber is dangerous because it has 7 AP and high initiative. It ends its first turn with you inside the splash radius, meaning that you have to spend your first turn moving out of blast range. Older games tended to balance high power of ranged characters by making them weak. I think one issue in Original Sin is that the enemies can't move far enough to threaten the mages/rangers before they are intercepted or killed at range.

- As a setpiece battle, the Lighthouse encounter should be tougher.


- In the alpha, we're not going to get high level, so we have no idea how to balance for a high level.



I like this idea. The only possible issue I see is that it means your cooldowns will be stuck indefinitely if you are not in combat. I can see that possibly causing problems, like if you want to heal (or revive using your resurrect spell) but you can't because you're not in combat. I suppose that's not that big a deal, though.

Actually it is, considering that you can use spells out of combat as a tool for solving quests. I crushed a door, for instance, using my spells.

Yeah, true. it also could be a problem for the Talking Statues.


All I can think of to deal with that though is that resting in an official rest place will clear the cooldowns. That doesn't solve the problem of being able to bypass cooldowns by resting, but since Elwyn's system has the cooldowns carry over between turns - instead of lasting for ages and ages, there's less motivation to go back to someplace and rest... unless you're expecting a boss encounter, which is exactly the right time that you SHOULD be encouraged to go back and rest.

EDIT: Oh! And of course you can only rest every so often. Even Divine Divinity had a system to keep you from resting too much, and exploiting rest's ability to fully heal you. I think 6 in-game hours should be enough time between rests.

For what it's worth if you weren't posting these things so eloquently I'd be posting something very similar in a clumsier fashion.

Hm, apart from resting I could also think of some kind of other purge-mechanics for the spell cool-downs between the fights. For example, it could cost you 100 gold coins to remove one cool-down turn from the spell, 200 coins to remove two cool-down turns, 300 for three turns etc. Or it could be tied to your life energy, so that you have to sacrifice 5 health points for one cool-down turn removal, 10 for two and so on.

While playing the Alpha several times on thing comes out clearly: the pure Warrior(Path) is currently extremely underpowered and (if you choose a warrior as party member) a real problem. You can't get them in the "line of fire" because he would block your ranger/mage spells, you can't put him at the frontline because he would die in one turn.

As a Lvl 1 Mage you able to kill a lvl 6 Mob (or at least the ones in the alpha), the warrior don't survive the first round. As consequence my last alpha-tries was mostly Mage/Mage, Mage/Ranger or Ranger/Ranger builds.

But i don't think this is a great problem, because of the open skill system. If i get this right, a Warrior/Mage should be no problem

I like the current combat system. The (A)D&D system (especialy the resting) adds a complexity to the fight, without adding fun or make things more tactical.

The main problem with the mage is (imho), that it skills boots the spells/damage directly. While building up a "fire"-mage at lvl 3, i was able to reach lvl 13 with my fire-speels. This leads to max damage at nearly no (mana)cost.

Adding the same "resistance" and damage-booster to Warrior and limiting the "spoken speels per fight" via a resource like mana should lead to a more balanced situation

@Stabbey: Sorry if my remark came off as rude or unfair, that was not my intention.

About combat, and magic in particular, I think there shouldn't be "big nukes" without setup, even if they had long cd and charge time. Otherwise, all combats will be like "I use my 2 turn charge time super spell hoping nothing interrupt me, then clean up what's left with the rest of my arsenal".

Also, except for Water sorcery which has the heal and freezes, most spell seem to do the same thing, damage, with just some cosmetic differences and minor side effects (for instance, both poisoned and burning are dots). There needs to be more mechanic differences between the 4 sorcery schools. Like, water could be heals & control, earth control & debuffs, fire dots and buffs, air nukes and buffs. Of course there should be enough spells so that each sorcery school is not limited to 2 functions.

And I'm gonna bring again my "high tier spells need to rely on small tier ones" creed. Eg: the fire spell "fireball" would do "meh" damages on its own but have a nuke potential on burning targets, at the cost of consuming the burning effect. A "thunderbolt" spell could be a medium, single target nuke, that could turn into an aoe if surrounding targets are affected by some "ion" debuff (or standing in water, obviously).
The obvious benefit of such a system is that there is no "MEGADOOM" spell in the game, only moderate spells that have the potential to turn into big ones after some prerequisites are fulfilled. It also makes all spell relevant during the entire game, and encourage diversity.

Hi guys! I just read the whole thread and wanted to throw in my own few thoughts...

So far I was playing a mage and fighter. The way I play, the mage did the job on his ( her ) own and the fighter was pretty useless. This is because I always tried to avoid getting the fighter in the way of the spells / getting hit by the aoe/cone spells of the mage. Most of the discussion in this thread is about longer cooldown vs. ingediants neccessary to cast powerfull spells. I think both ways wouldn´t realy change the problem. Even if you would find a way to restrict spawning the powerfull spells... my problem stays the same... why should I get the fighter up close, when he is also damaged by every spell I use? ( btw. I realy like friendly fire )

In other words, how can the combat mechanics be changed to render the fighter more usefull? What would make the whole game more challanging... tactic-wise?


I very much like the "no mama" thing and I very much like to cast alot and have a big arsenal of spells at my disposal to choose from all the time ( this speaks against long timers and the ingrediants idea )

and I very much !!! like the ideas of @Grokalibre... just the post here above...


What if...


- there were no aoe damage spells at all ( maybe just cones, but they would have to do much less damage )

- the only way to do powerfull aoe damage would be e.g. by electrifying water etc. ( if this is a two phase process, the fighter should have powers or gadgets to do one of the two pases... e.g. the mage makes it rain and the fighter throws a power-battery in the water or can throw a torch in a gas cloud to ignite it ect.( this also could render the explosive barrels standing everywere useless and which would be a good thing too )

- fire damage spells were single target only or could ignite poison as aoe
- freezing dosn´t do any damage at all but has a longer effect, so that the fighter can step in
- poison cloud has aoe damage over time
- water cone or single target pushes back ( washes away the poison gas )
- electicity could be a single target or aoe damage everybody who is wet ( jump over ) or electocute water
- what about rocks ( just as earth bending in the animation series "Avatar the last airbender" ) where you can make barriers or slow enemies down

... alot of this is already in the game and I´m happy about it, but there could be more elemental interaction

All in all I think it would be good, if you couldn´t just outrun enemies, but would have to do something with them to slow them down in the first place to be able to escape. If magic was more about buf and debuf, manipulating the environment, summoning and combining different effects. I also think, that if you would make changes like that the pcs should get more hp to survive longer in a more hostile and challenging setting.

I realy enjoy blasting a group of foes with one shot, but in a tactical game like this, it makes no real sense.

Please excuse all my misspelling and "have a good slide" ... as we say in Germany - come good into the next year ;-)

That’s a pretty steep price to pay (in either gold or Health) for what you get in return. At those rates, it doesn't look worth it, and the result - people balking at the cost, in effect is the same as not having any cooldown reset mechanic at all.


I apologize for repeating my idea of resting to reset the cooldowns, but I’d just like to expand on the thought. As I said, Divine Divinity had a cooldown on how often you could rest.

Grand Theft Auto uses the 1 second = 1 minute of gametime. 6 in-game hours is 6 real-time minutes. What if in DOS 1 second of real-time was 30 minutes of game-time, making 6 in-game hours 12 real-time minutes? That's too long if you just want to rush back to town and rest after every encounter, but not that long if you're actually out and about doing things and not just waiting out the clock.

*****

Grokalibre - I like the idea of the powerful spells requiring setup, that would fit in with the current system we have here of combining elemental attacks.

I just proposed the addition of a Chilled status in the General Feedback thread:




I agree that some of the low-level damage spells could also be mostly useful for creating surfaces, or requiring double-taps to deal their damage - first tap inflicts a status, the second tap deals damage to enemies inflicted with that status.

One of the problems is that you start out level 1 characters with a bunch of CLEARLY higher-level spells. There's no way Teleport, Winterbreath, and Fireball will be level 1 spells. In in final, it's more likely that a 4-element generalist mage would start out with your basic Blitzbolt, Flare, Poison Dart, and Ice Bolt spells.

What about something like:
-some water spells (eg: rain) apply "doused", then some air and/or ice spells could consume the douse to freeze the target, with a duration based on the number of "doused" stacks.
-ice spells apply the "chilled" effect, slowing the target (could be either a snare or an AP reduction). Then some "Shatter" spell would consume "chilled" stacks for some burst damage. "Shatter" could be an earth spell for thematic reasons.

Having some debuffs result from spell interactions only would be pretty nice too. Like, "poisoned" (stats debuff) + "burning" (dot) = "acid" (armor reduction).

I think another benefit of having such interactions is that it gives more synergy between the different "class", assuming of course the warrior and rangers skills are given elemental weapons and/or abilities.
Eg: Warrior with a "Sword of the Cold North" rush in, tank and tries to hit as many targets possible (possibly with whirlwind) to debuff them with "chilled". Meanwhile the mage, after having buffed the warrior with some fire spell for a speed bonus and increased resistance to cold, could take benefit of the "chilled" targets to either "shatter" or "freeze" them.
Having ennemies have various elemental resistances and immunities would possibly prevent the existence of an "OP-combo-that-works-in-every-situation-and-makes-the-use-of-anything-else-pointless".

Also, because no spell is OP on its own, there's no need to have crazy long cooldowns, everything is more or less spammable, but without proper setup/use of the context nothing is especially good.
And thus there's no need to rely on a "resting" system, which can be possibly abused unless it's afflicted by tons of restrictions.

Ok I'm gonna vent a bit here so feel free to skip it:

Well, I like the idea of resting but I was just thinking of another mechanism which could/would also work. I am surely not insisting on 100 gold per turn and any other gold value is also fine ;-) The idea is to make the mechanism cheap enough if the player just needs to clear any cool-downs in order to complete a quest and expensive enough so that the player would hesitate to use it too often between the fights. It seems logical to tie the costs to the cool-down turns number since most powerful and devastating spells would have a very long cool-down. So, any increasing function of the cool-down turns would be fine - linear, quadratic or even exponential - if balanced properly.