Combat Log

[jivex5k]

If there is one thing I'd love to see in this game its a detailed log of actions.

I know playing BG2 I would become extremely frustrated when I couldn't tell what was going on. I had a hard time keeping track of someone being poisoned or injured, caught in an entangle web or whatever...just always seemed like that information was hard to keep track of.

 

That being said, they did have the combat log which would help, but I'd like to see an improved version of it.

 

I want complex battles, but I want to be able to follow the action as well.

[Ieo]

Additional topic

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/59968-scrolling-text-log-for-dialog-and-combat/

 

I found BG2 combat easy enough to follow by the visuals (oh, he's stuck in a web), but I think the poison/curse/etc. icons on the actual portraits were very small and hard to see, especially with all the buff icons alongside them.

 

The combat log, like in the other thread (there was probably at least one other but I can't find it at the moment), could very well share the main chat window like in the old IE games, but I think it would be easier to track if separated out in a tab while dialogic/narrative text is in another tab. Additionally, the dialogic log should be kept somewhere in a journal-like manner for players to review for quests or something.

[rjshae]

If there is one thing I'd love to see in this game its a detailed log of actions.

I know playing BG2 I would become extremely frustrated when I couldn't tell what was going on. I had a hard time keeping track of someone being poisoned or injured, caught in an entangle web or whatever...just always seemed like that information was hard to keep track of.

 

That being said, they did have the combat log which would help, but I'd like to see an improved version of it.

 

I want complex battles, but I want to be able to follow the action as well.

 

Wasn't that captured by the little icons on the character portraits? Granted, the meaning of those wasn't always clear in the BG series. I think they did a better job of that in NWN2. Maybe they need a highlight graphic when a new negative effect gets added to a character?

Edited October 9, 2012 by rjshae

[jivex5k]

If there is one thing I'd love to see in this game its a detailed log of actions.

I know playing BG2 I would become extremely frustrated when I couldn't tell what was going on. I had a hard time keeping track of someone being poisoned or injured, caught in an entangle web or whatever...just always seemed like that information was hard to keep track of.

 

That being said, they did have the combat log which would help, but I'd like to see an improved version of it.

 

I want complex battles, but I want to be able to follow the action as well.

 

Wasn't that captured by the little icons on the character portraits? Granted, the meaning of those wasn't always clear in the BG series. I think they did a better job of that in NWN2. Maybe they need a highlight graphic when a new negative effect gets added to a character?

Yeah that's what I mean. I can't tell what the heck those little icons mean...I want a combat log to yell at me: "HEY MAN YOUR FREAKING POISONED!!!!!!! CURE THAT NOW!!!!!" instead of going: "pssst, hey, hey man theres something weird going on"

I want it to say: "THAT DUDES CASTING A BIG ASS FIRE SPELL MAN BE READY!!!!!"

Not some cryptic animation then BOOM your party is dead.

Edited October 9, 2012 by jivex5k

[Ieo]

If there is one thing I'd love to see in this game its a detailed log of actions.

I know playing BG2 I would become extremely frustrated when I couldn't tell what was going on. I had a hard time keeping track of someone being poisoned or injured, caught in an entangle web or whatever...just always seemed like that information was hard to keep track of.

 

That being said, they did have the combat log which would help, but I'd like to see an improved version of it.

 

I want complex battles, but I want to be able to follow the action as well.

 

Wasn't that captured by the little icons on the character portraits? Granted, the meaning of those wasn't always clear in the BG series. I think they did a better job of that in NWN2. Maybe they need a highlight graphic when a new negative effect gets added to a character?

Yeah that's what I mean. I can't tell what the heck those little icons mean...I want a combat log to yell at me: "HEY MAN YOUR FREAKING POISONED!!!!!!! CURE THAT NOW!!!!!" instead of going: "pssst, hey, hey man theres something weird going on"

I want it to say: "THAT DUDES CASTING A BIG ASS FIRE SPELL MAN BE READY!!!!!"

Not some cryptic animation then BOOM your party is dead.

 

Part of that is really to learn the animations, removing the cryptic part.

 

e.g. Poison, the character twitches like he was hit, once every second or two. Casting a fireball, if you have a mage, there's an incantation you can recognize--the combat log should not tell you beforehand what the enemy is casting. That is just lame.

 

Portrait state icons can definitely be improved somehow.

[rjshae]

Yeah that's what I mean. I can't tell what the heck those little icons mean...I want a combat log to yell at me: "HEY MAN YOUR FREAKING POISONED!!!!!!! CURE THAT NOW!!!!!" instead of going: "pssst, hey, hey man theres something weird going on"

I want it to say: "THAT DUDES CASTING A BIG ASS FIRE SPELL MAN BE READY!!!!!"

Not some cryptic animation then BOOM your party is dead.

 

I like the way they did it in some of the old dungeon crawl games: when your character was sick or poisoned, you could see it in their portrait expression.

Edited October 9, 2012 by rjshae