Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Beta Beta UI Wishlist (Menus, Controls, Etc.)

Some ideas :

For the skill bars : give us some hotkeys ( like F1 F2 F3 ) to select the bar

For easier target selection : give us a hotkey to pause the animations. It could be automatic when a skill has been selected and it needs a target.

Concerning the formations :
- give us a button to link/unlink all ( plus hotkey +/- )

After a combat :
- don't end the combat as soon as the last ennemy is dead. Allow us to decide to do it when it is safe ( poison, burning ... ).

Wow, Aramintai, those are more awesome mockups that bring to life things requested earlier in this thread (better/clearer recipe journal section; new dedicated crafting interface) - good work!

And thorska, I believe for the "enemy targeting" issue - which has also been mentioned earlier in this thread - Larian has said they'll be allowing targeting by clicking on the enemy icons displayed along the top of the combat screen. And I think (and hope) they'll make significant improvements in upcoming updates to fix the whole "NPC pathfinding/control on damage areas/environments" issue, as was also discussed earlier. We'll see!

I dont know - i never had any problem with targeting enemies.
Because i dont rush to click around as if im playing a shooter. No need - in Turn Based.

I mean sure, some people may have ran into some problems there... fine. Im just saying it really isnt something created by the game itself.


that would be nice but i generally like to play with the mouse and i would still like that improved in addition to any key bindings.

just sayin...


That seems like a bit too much. The game is paused at that moment. Its Turn based. All you need is to make your twitching fingers do things in Turns.

- but fine, if you people really cant be just a bit more patient...
Its not like i actually need it.


That would be nice. Maybe even very nice.



Hmm... end combat key... that could be a relatively easy solution to those problems. Indeed.


- just very general comments about those suggestions -

Hiver - with enemy targeting, being "patient" has nothing to do with it - as has been often mentioned within this thread and elsewhere on the forums, sometimes when enemies are very close to a player character or to other enemies, it's almost impossible to "highlight"/target them - and even when you do, an imperceptible and involuntary slip of the mouse will lose the targeting. This obviously needs work. Just sayin'.

Oh, ive never had that happen to me. Sorry!

My quibble with the idea idea of hiding the enemy's level without points into Perception - "you'll know if you're outmatched when you get slaughtered" - is that it leads to trial-and-error gameplay, which leads to frustration.

:hiver spreads arms with a look of wonder on his face:

SOOO?


Are we playing True RPG (yes the distinction is necesary these days) games so we have everything easy? For the "experience" that should be force fed into us like a shot of heroin that never, ever ends?

(i hate heroin and what it does to people in ways you cannot imagine, btw)

Dont true RPGs require some effort, some sort of mastering the games rules and skills so we can overcome the challenges and obstacles? ISNT that whats actually fun?

And dont go into absurd extremes territory now. It isnt about being completely frustrated - but frustration, some measure of it - is a part of the gameplay of True RPGs.
Otherwise we can all just play on easiest setting by reading walkthroughs. Just to get the... "experience".
- Cue in last ten years of mass market devolution of the genre -

Besides, if you want to have a bit easier time in this sense - well just invest a few points into Perception. What is wrong with that?

You need it anyway, Its useful anyway. This would be just a small additional use for it.

One suggestion from Steam forum user:

Hiver, one post I keep seeing repeatedly crop up here, on the Steam Forums, elsewhere, is that they can't figure out how to leave Cyseal without getting killed. They're frustrated. I did not present some kind of absurd hypothetical, it is not ludicrous to claim that people will get frustrated - some already are.

How many MORE people will get even more frustrated and pissed off at the game if the level of combat encounters is hidden? How many reviewers will get frustrated?

I think that the combat encounters are challenging right now at the appropriate level. I don't think that adding guesswork and encouraging save scumming will improve the combat experience.

Yes, adding the functionality to Perception would improve Perception's appeal, but I think one of the larger obstacles to Perception's appeal is this: you have your primary attributes which are required for your equipment. You have CON which increases your health and AP, and SPD which increases your movement and turn AP, and those are often more appealing than Perception. Because the only guaranteed primary attributes come once every other level, there's pressure to spend them in the key stats first.

I believe that giving players the information about the level of the enemies up front gives them the information to make an educated decision about whether they can handle the encounter or not. I think that is better than having them guess each time.

People cant figure out a lot of things, especially in an environment that doesnt force them to figure out things in anyway and just lets them have it all easy.

Im pretty sure that if in school i didnt get ... what is it... Ds? (it was different where im from. Here you would get a Five for the best results and an Ace for the worst).
Oh, right, right - A`s. D is the worst, whatever.

Well, if i didnt get so many Aces ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COvCPJGjaiE
I wouldnt become so smart as i am now. :P

Imagine if my professors were giving me high Fives for everything!? I would still be on kindergarden levels of knowledge and ability to think. As would you or anyone else.

As i was saying, some level of "frustration" is an indispensable part of the true RPGs and most of other games. Games cannot exist without it. Without it the games would be movies.
Which, you may have noticed is what AAA mass market industry has been trying to turn them into for along time now.

...


How many more? Whats that? A prophecy? Precognition?
Should games like this be designed because in the future there may be some people who will get frustrated about something? Design out of fear of something that doesnt exist now?

And may never exist at all?

How many users are actually "frustrated" about not even trying to figure out where they should go at the start?

One?

Two?

Maybe five all together?
Lets talk real numbers here, not paranoia.

Lets remember Fallout... gee how many people were frustrated if they went toward any more difficult area of the game?
Wow... lets just level scale the fuck, eh?


Or is this just a case where you think something should be done and then youre using fallacious arguments to make it seem like there is an actual need for something like that?


Yeah, that fine. I dont think adding guesswork and encouraging save scumming will improve the combat experience - either.
The problem with that statement is that it implies specific things but it doesnt explain them in any way at all.

The problem with your idea is that it gives something free and as a meta features - completely outside of game mechanics or character skills.

While my idea about it provides that information - through character skills.



You are not guessing. You are getting a very direct feedback from the game. And if you invest a few points in Perception you would get more of it.

Besides, we have been over this argument previously. If you know what is the exact level of the enemies - it directly leads into metagaming. Because then the players knows exactly with what kind of level they should approach any encounter - which makes the whole deal really boring.

It takes the player out of the game. - Breaks the fourth wall, buddy.


...


Now, personally... i wouldnt have this feature even for Perception. Especially because i like roguish and rangerish builds and this just spoils the game for me. Completely.

Its just an internally enabled huge spoiler and a cheat. As far as im concerned.

I only suggested it as a Perception feature because its the only way it would make sense enabled through game and character mechanics. And because i know some of you are that incompetent. And i feel sorry for you. So much so that i would ruin the game for myself to help you people.

If it was really up to me - you wouldnt get that at all.
Maybe...maybe i would allow it for the easy mode. At the most.


....



If Larian wants to, they can just adjust the warnings the guards are giving you when you try to exit north and east gates to be more direct warnings.

That would solve that problem completely. Even if i wouldn't like it and i would personally - move it into the easy mode.

But the game isnt made only for me. (Which is the Larians biggest mistake if you ask me :P - just joking ffs...)

Thanks for sharing, ZoddGuts - I don't follow the Steam forums. So that's another vote similar to the item from the OP of this thread, but focusing on the trading menu:



C'mon Larian, please?

I think if they did that then the price of having all the item is gonna be expensive...O.O;;;

Sorry Minchi, I don't quite follow you?

EDIT: Oh, now I see what you're saying - repairing everything at once would be expensive. But think about it - you'd only need to have the merchant repair what you couldn't repair yourself, and if you didn't want the merchant to repair at least those things, you probably aren't going to be using them much longer anyway (since they'll soon break/be useless).

That said, the "repair all" function is something I'd personally find more useful during regular non-combat exploration - not necessarily just within the trading menu.

I don't agree with hiding levels... I do think maybe there should be a tutorial popup when entering the city...

"You're now in a city... don't be a moron and leave it straight away to get killed, explore it dumbass. This isn't DIABLO!"

Probably more polite though XD

if there is a tarder (err... - trader, - pun not intended) "repair all" function then it really needs to be an addition to selecting what to repair specifically as it is now.

Maybe i dont want to repair everything? Maybe i dont have enough money or want to spend that much?
I would never use such a command even if it was there. Personally.


But as a ease of use feature when it comes to my character blacksmithing - that i could see as a good thing. Although it would be nice if it lasted as long as it would take to repair each item individually. So we dont loose the sense of that being a fairly difficult thing to do.

Actually hiding the lvl is the best way of doing it and also having a friendly but silly tutorial popup when entering the city..

"Hello, This is the narrator...you are entering the city...Please don't kill the npcs who live there...and please lvl up before leaving the town...and have fun exploring lol..."

My style of witty humor XD!!

Increase the texture resolution of the UI and especially the character portraits, please (or reduce their size).

All you've said is "Frustration is good" and "Players should guess". You never explained why players guessing at enemy levels should be considered a good or correct form of frustration.

A true game designer comes up with a solution that can achieve both the frustration while retaining the ability to have educated guesses, and using frustration in a positive way rather than a negative way. That solution is to make very lethal combinations of enemies that are more challenging compared to other monsters of their level. Not just "mage buffs everybody elses damage", but things that need to be actively thought about to avoid. Things that are extremely dangerous if you have no idea that they can happen, and require some prediction and preparation to handle.

Let's say regular level 4 zombies are easy at level 4, but there are level 4 zombies in a poison pool supported by a level 4 mage. If zombies could, for example, spread poison on the ground to heal them as they advance to you while you still take fire from the mages but also have to find a way to deal with both the poison and the regenerating zombies. Then you could combine it with mage AI that, if still alive, will detonate the final zombie corpse to create smoke. Mages could be given the ability to blindfire directly through smoke without a target that would create a potentially deadly blind zone that has magic spewing out of it in random blindfire based on your last known location. A good use for invisibility, as you can move outside of the smoke while visible to give the mage a Last Known Position, then travel to a zone that is not at risk of being hit with blindfire while invisible.

Level 4 zombie? Not too bad. Level 4 mage? Not too bad. Combined? You're going to get some surprises thrown at you and probably die horribly.

Another thing that makes this better is that you aren't just getting slaughtered by huge numbers, you are being shown new ways to fight by the enemies and learning from your battles. You learn new mechanics and start to think of tactical ways to avoid the deadly Zombie + Mage Combo. It would make you think about using environmental spells in battle to clear the smoke. Perhaps there could be a talent that clears the smoke around the character but increases the overall volume of the cloud. You would be thinking about how YOU could use the environmental combinations like poison + fire to your advantage, and thinking about using your enemies or teammates in non-traditional ways to accomplish your goal.

It also accomplishes the goal of making players more aware of their environments before choosing to enter a battle. The current mini oil tutorial is not particularly effective at creating a memorable experience that makes the player excited to use the mechanic. Not only does this simple two enemy combo promote environmental effects, but it also promotes the idea of needing to decide what enemies to deal with first. More enemies added into the mix with really interesting combinations that cannot all be prevented before one of them occurs, you have to start weighing risks of being hit with one of those combinations and how the effects of those may impact future turns. Then even further, more enemies brings in the aspect of learning the enemy AI in regards to which combinations it will prioritize when multiple are available.

You end the battle with "hey that was cool, i should think of ways to avoid it and use my own powerful combo" rather than "I'm not sure if this is the wrong way, if i have to grind, or if i've missed a dungeon".

The frustration generated from things like this encourages the player to overcome the challenge, whereas getting slaughtered by the same attacks with big numbers is just annoying and tedious.

Well, thats not really true. I did.

I was referring to the fact that frustration is integral part of gaming. Because the challenge is and there is no challenge without some measure of frustration.

Of course, if someone takes that as a crude blanket statement and tries to counter that by argument from absurdity, such as simplistic form of "oh well why dont we just make all game incredibly frustrating (in all the wrong ways), eh?" - he misses the point completely.


As to why exactly i consider "guessing" at enemy levels to be a correct form of challenge and frustration - i explained that.

First - you are not guessing at all. You have your direct feedback from enemy encounters - all the bloody time.

Second - knowing enemy levels directly causes metagaming.
Takes player out of the game itself and gets them thinking about this and adjusting how they play the game because of it.






True. Which is what i say about frustration in this sense.



One of the possible solutions. Not directly tied to the problem we are discussing here.


And how is that going to happen if you know the enemy levels before hand, exactly?

Arent you actually saying what im saying here, now?





there would be no surprises there. A player would know that would happen by knowing the exact levels the enemy have.


That only happens when you dont know the enemy levels beforehand.



Only if you dont know the enemy levels beforehand.

if you do know them then you know exactly for what the enemies are capable of and what combinations they will use. Especially since such combinations are of the limited quantity and easily learned.

Even more easily, if the player knows the exact enemy level.





It accomplishes only the opposite.



Nope. You dont.




Who exactly ever mentioned getting slaughtered by the same attacks? let alone imagined that as desirable mechanic?

Thats just a Strawman argument at the end. Based on completely false and incorrect basis.

Sorry.

Ok, so now that sorting within tabs has been added it has become easier to rummage through inventory. But why is there no obvious option to sort items By Type of the item?
Btw, radial menu is neat