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Playing through D:OS:EE now as my backer reward and although tons of fun, I wanted to voice somewhere 3 issues that are driving me batty. (In hopes these are considered for the sequel).

1. No pause. I'd like an old school pause for a few reasons. Kill NPC banter that loops, stop on screen movement, etc. But the biggest issue is that in combat, enemy animations actually cause me to waste combat moves. Right when I go to click my attack button, the mob will "duck". This isn't a "miss", "block", or any system roll. This is the animation, and instead of firing an arrow, my archer will run to wherever I clicked fully wasting the turn. (and as tight as the combat is, this usually means a reload as well). I'd hate to suggest killing the nice visuals by disabling combat animations, when a simple pause, which is obviously optional would solve this issue.

Since this game boasts multiplayer, I could easily see this being fully disabled in multiplayer, or let the server hoster set it as a rule for people to see and agree on before joining.

2. I would like to skip, or more preferably, speed up (optionally with a toggle) enemy moves. I just finished a battle with 10 enemy AI with lots of CC. I had to wait 20 enemy moves before I could touch the keyboard. This was quite torcherous. In most fights, I'd like to watch it playout in real time, but so far 2 fights with lots of mobs, adds, and CC have had me laying on the floor pounding both fists and feet on the ground while waiting for me turn.

3. My party avoids detected traps very well. I love this feature. However, when not in combat, they happily walk through acid and fire while I am looting chests even though I didn't. Any chance they could avoid said and certain pain when NOT in combat?

Thanks!

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For the EE, with normal attacks you can right click an opponent and select Attack (no effect if you miss click) or hold the Shift button down to queue commands and left click: if you get a red target selection indicator, release the Shift button, otherwise if you get the white move indicator, right click to cancel while still holding Shift.

Aiming for the feet (when possible) can help (most of the idle animation movement is in the upper body), or you can zoom in or switch to the overhead tactical view.

For skills/spells you can use the turn order portraits at the top of the screen to target.


The following characters should already avoid hazardous surfaces when not in combat, most of the time. There could be improvements to how they move to stay in formation when the lead character moves short distances when looting, etc.

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Originally Posted by Hucklebarry
1. No pause. I'd like an old school pause for a few reasons. Kill NPC banter that loops, stop on screen movement, etc. But the biggest issue is that in combat, enemy animations actually cause me to waste combat moves.

I think pausing is a terrible solution to this problem.

People can have similar issues in Photoshop. In Photoshop, this was solved by having the cursor snap to guides (that is you just have to have the cursor close to what you're trying to click on, rather than being exactly on it), but you can press Alt if you want to temporarily turn off snapping and use the precision of the cursor.

D:OS could create a similar switch for targeting an NPC/object versus targeting the environment.

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Originally Posted by Ayvah
I think pausing is a terrible solution to this problem.

I can understand a differing opinion, but "terrible" seems like an odd word to use. Its not like reinventing the wheel here, pausing is a known and acceptable solution in these types of games, and since it would be completely optional (i.e. don't pause if you don't want to), I don't understand the reaction against it.

The more options they can give the player to control the game in a fun way, the better, especially since we all don't agree on what "fun" is.

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Originally Posted by Hucklebarry
Originally Posted by Ayvah
I think pausing is a terrible solution to this problem.

I can understand a differing opinion, but "terrible" seems like an odd word to use. Its not like reinventing the wheel here, pausing is a known and acceptable solution in these types of games, and since it would be completely optional (i.e. don't pause if you don't want to), I don't understand the reaction against it.

Pausing as a solution to the problem you described is more of a band-aid than an actual solution. If the animation causes the target to "duck" behind another character, then you need to be careful to pause at the correct moment and this becomes a new problem.

And when you describe "pausing", what do you really mean? Are we simply suspending all animation and muting sound effects? Do you have to unpause before your character will follow their command? It seems pretty clear you wouldn't be satisfied with just the typical pause menu (which addresses the specific need of letting you take a toilet break, etc).

Really, UI issues should be fixed with UI solutions. You can't target accurately? Well, it'd be best for us to think about how they can improve the targeting UI. I haven't played D:OS in the last few days, but I believe you should be able to target enemies via their portraits, for example.

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You need to pause idle animation of the one character AND only when mouse cursor hovers. At this moment make the curently focused character as "foremost" so it cant be covered by someone else idle animation. Current target loose focus when mouse cursor is moved to x/y coordinates which are off the focused character.


Also, take noticed - for multiplayer, the idle animation is paused only for the user who is mouse hovering. For all other co-op partners idle animation runs in their own loop, so everything looks smooth. --> not paused.

Yes it needs some programming but final user experience is far better.

Last edited by gGeo; 02/12/15 09:52 AM.
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And when you describe "pausing", what do you really mean?


I mean pausing all moving objects (possibly not sound). As I mentioned, there are more than one reason to have a pause. A plethora of games have this feature such as KOTOR (Knights of the Old Republic). I'm not a huge turn base fan, but every title I have touched has pause except this game.

For another example, try clicking on an animal to talk to. The mouse never stops running, the rabbit never stops hopping, the deer can even run off screen. Surely the devs didn't intend to to have mis-clicking all over the map to try and talk to the animals?

While there may be more technical fixes for each issue, I am mearly suggesting that the pause feature definitely fixes them and fixes many issues at once. Also, keep in mind, I posted this in the DOS2 forum. I don't expect them to go back and add pause in EE. I am just suggesting that while developing DOS2, to keep in mind some of the things that never settled correctly with EE.

I have tried targeting via portrait with no success. I have also tried Raze's suggesting of aiming for the legs and "shift-clicking" and that has not helped as much as I hoped, though it has some.

I like your idea to fix the animation directly, but I wanted to make sure I stated that there was more than one reason to suggest the pause feature.

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I see no reason not to add a pause feature; if for no other reason than to stop the repeating banter around NPC's. The snap to target works as well but has many issues of its own such as bunched up or overlapping targets, and moving targets as the author pointed out in his original post. Further, this is not photoshop and for anyone not used to that type of thing, it will be as unintuitive as right clicking is now. Even knowing about right click and select attack, I still find myself left clicking most of the time and every now and then, messing up.

Another solution would be "execute" popup after a command is given or simply a delay so that one can undo a mistake. But this can get really annoying, then again, this is a turn based game after all.

2 - Yes. Speed up actions would be a huge boon.

3 - This could be easily implemented by making only the controlled PC vulnerable to environment when out of combat for say 15 seconds or so.

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experienced yet another issue that needs a pause. In the phantom forest, where the floating fireballs one-shot your entire party if you don't range them down first... I'm having a very difficult time targeting them and getting off an attack command before they enter combat (and once in combat, they seem to always win the initiative roll).

Something as simple as selecting the enemy should not rely on twitch reactions and speedy mouse reflexes (and some luck).

I've tried using sneak and other methods and can manage with lots of save/reloads... but I can't imagine that is too many people's idea of "fun".

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AoE spells like meteor shower work like a charm. But I do agree - it isn't really my idea of fun too.

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Originally Posted by gGeo
You need to pause idle animation of the one character AND only when mouse cursor hovers. At this moment make the curently focused character as "foremost" so it cant be covered by someone else idle animation. Current target loose focus when mouse cursor is moved to x/y coordinates which are off the focused character.

I like this implementation. The problem is that the specific item being targeted moves. This is a specific solution. Stopping that specific animation feels like a reasonable interface fix.

For when you're trying to target a rat and it keeps moving. Once you target it, maybe it should try to wait for you? And realistically, once you decide to talk to someone, then they should feel comfortable approaching you as well -- instead of it all being one-sided.

Originally Posted by Hucklebarry
experienced yet another issue that needs a pause. In the phantom forest, where the floating fireballs one-shot your entire party if you don't range them down first... I'm having a very difficult time targeting them and getting off an attack command before they enter combat (and once in combat, they seem to always win the initiative roll).

I haven't experienced this part of the game yet, but the problem here is that the line between non-combat and combat is being blurred. You want the benefits of being in combat (casting offensive spells) without the downsides (waiting for your turn, being attacked).

You're trying to do something the game wasn't designed for.

The game does actually struggle with the transition from combat to non-combat. There are many occasions where I'd be in a dialogue leading up to combat and my co-op partner will cast a summon immediately before the combat begins. This is something we do deliberately, but it doesn't really fit within the spirit of how combat in D:OS is designed.

So I think that what Larian need to do for D:OS2 is re-examine how they tackle the problem of transitioning from non-combat to combat, because at the moment there are tactics that feel like cheating.

XCOM actually had a similar problem with transitioning from non-combat to combat. The most tactical way to approach combat actually felt pretty cheap. They've recognised this and with XCOM 2 they've explicitly built gameplay around this transition phase (with gameplay allowing you to sneak up on and ambush enemies). This means that this part of the game should hopefully be much better balanced.

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Originally Posted by Ayvah



I haven't experienced this part of the game yet, but the problem here is that the line between non-combat and combat is being blurred. You want the benefits of being in combat (casting offensive spells) without the downsides (waiting for your turn, being attacked).

You're trying to do something the game wasn't designed for.



I don't think you understand the issue. That certainly doesn't describe what I want, or what is happening. What I want is something that makes sense and retains the "fun" factor. Its not fun to have a moving object on a timer that wipes my party if I can't twitch-click fast enough. The instance I describe actually changes the game mechanics. Its no longer turn based because if those things manage to get into combat... its a wipe and reload. So you HAVE to kill them first, BEFORE COMBAT STARTS. I wouldn't need to ask for a pause to aim if this was handled differently. But I've listed several issues where pausing is required to overcome existing game mechanics.

I'm certainly not asking what you described. I'm asking for consistency. If the game is turn based, then let me have a turn before you kill me.

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Originally Posted by Hucklebarry
Its no longer turn based because if those things manage to get into combat... its a wipe and reload. So you HAVE to kill them first, BEFORE COMBAT STARTS. I wouldn't need to ask for a pause to aim if this was handled differently. But I've listed several issues where pausing is required to overcome existing game mechanics.

I'm certainly not asking what you described. I'm asking for consistency. If the game is turn based, then let me have a turn before you kill me.

This is an encounter that you feel is excessively challenging. Your solution is cheap when you consider the spirit of how the combat is designed. You're exploiting non-combat mode to get a free shot at the enemy even though the combat is explicitly designed to give you a turn depending on initiative.

I've done the same thing in both Divinity: Original Sin and XCOM: Enemy Unknown. In both cases, I'm telling you this isn't fun.

In both games, there are other problems with the transition to combat mode. You have to guess the enemy field of view and try to sneak up on the enemies without entering combat. Another thread has also complained about the problem of trying to position your party tactically for combat.

These things are easier to do with pause -- eg XCOM, which is fully turn-based. The best strategy in XCOM is to provoke enemies with the first movement of your turn so that you can take a shot at them with your whole squad before they can react.

XCOM explicitly had to design the game to nerf this game-breaking tactic. They gave the aliens a free move when provoked, in order to give the aliens a chance to protect themselves so they aren't immediately wiped out by your squad. But the tactic still existed and it was still pretty cheap.

I am 100% sure that adding the pause mode -- as you're asking for it -- would only make this worse. It would turn a cheap (but fiddly) tactic into the game-breaking tactic it would have been in XCOM if the aliens weren't given a free move. The well-designed turn-based combat would become irrelevant because anyone with common sense will just be exploiting the unbalanced non-combat mode.

The solution being explored in XCOM 2 is to explicitly design a transition (ambush) phase that allows for a smooth and balanced transition into combat. I'm not sure how to design this in the context of D:OS2. This would require more thought.

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Originally Posted by Ayvah
Originally Posted by gGeo
You need to pause idle animation of the one character AND only when mouse cursor hovers. At this moment make the curently focused character as "foremost" so it cant be covered by someone else idle animation. Current target loose focus when mouse cursor is moved to x/y coordinates which are off the focused character.

I like this implementation. The problem is that the specific item being targeted moves. This is a specific solution. Stopping that specific animation feels like a reasonable interface fix.

For when you're trying to target a rat and it keeps moving. Once you target it, maybe it should try to wait for you? And realistically, once you decide to talk to someone, then they should feel comfortable approaching you as well -- instead of it all being one-sided.
Oh. Correct. My solution is for combat mainly, but agree that it could be applied for non combat too.

Althou there might be another issues. Lets imagine a guard patrolling, they are there for moving cone of view. So you can slip in in case of sneaking high enough. But, you could just abuse mouse over them to disable patrol? These nitpicks should be polished.

Last edited by gGeo; 19/12/15 09:47 AM.

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