The General Combat Thread

[Rillifane]

 

+1. There should be more trivial info on what the characters are doing. Also the casting animation and chanting.

casting animations and sounds ask for a slower default game speed as currently everything is attacking fast, casting fast and moving fast.

 

 

Not really. In bg/bg2, many spells casting are almost immediate but still IE handle them pretty well.

[Billy O]

This truly is a no brainier but I thought they were already doing it. I get icons on my characters but they are bugged and just show up as white or green squares. i assume that is what they will represent.

[Osvir]

Great idea

[Uomoz]

I'd love more general visual feedback for every action and effect. I agree.

[Linkamus]

 

It is a good idea. Only downside is that it hides the portrait abit.

They could easily do it so it doesn't cover the portrait.

 

Ya, they don't HAVE to put the icons directly on the portrait. There's room to be creative with it for sure.

[Ondb]

 

+1. There should be more trivial info on what the characters are doing. Also the casting animation and chanting.

casting animations and sounds ask for a slower default game speed as currently everything is attacking fast, casting fast and moving fast.

 

 

Currently spells has casting time + recovery time.

You could increase casting time while decreasing recovery time to enable better/longer casting animations and chanting

[cilantroll]

This is a great suggestion.

 

In other games, I've seen exactly this above or below a character portrait, as well as a little bar showing the progress of the skill/action/spell. I've seen this bar as a thicker border around the skill icon (starts filling from top left corner, around clockwise), or just as a straight bar, left to right. When the action completes, the bar is full, and the icon disappears.

 

If it's a continuous action like auto-attacking, there is no 'progress' bar in place; players know they can safely give another order to this character, as the only thing being interrupted is a normal attack.

[Falendor]

+1, I think the symbols for actions should be on the pictures, right now all the status effects are on top of the pic, one symbol for what action they are taking on the pic would not obscure the pic and would separate the "this is what im doing" icon from all the "this is whats effecting me" icons.

[Ondb]

Btw: i really don't get the idea of spells having recovery time similar to casting time and be somehow averaging around 6s. And the recovery time at all.

The game is real-time. For example what is wrong around different spells having completely different casting time like MagicMissile(2s), Fireball (4s), Disintegration (6s).

 

Its should also be normal to be able to cast 3x magic missile or (1 fireball and 1x magic missiles) within the same time frame. 

Why the hell do we have recovery time for spells / or attacks. Melee and ranged attack should be balanced around DPS, spells around casting time. 

[DaxD]

Combat is just so chaotic right now unless I constantly micro manage the group via space bar pauses. Even then it is hard to see what is happening. I am glad I am not the only one with this issue.

 

I am a big fan of the "spirit" games POE is modeling, and I never had this issue with combat in those other games. In its current state the combat is best served as turn based. I hope some tweaking can address that.

 

 

[cilantroll]

Combat is chaos. When there's a cluster of enemies, I can't keep track of all the little health dots all over the place, and definitely not the recovery bars of characters before their next attack/skill/spell in those little, floating, overlapping boxes.

 

How about adding the recovery bar beside our character portraits, another vertical bar that fills up beside the green? At a glance, I think that'd help a ton in terms of management, and which characters I should give orders to.

 

And I'd also like to add my voice to the camp that's expressing disappointment with the no XP thing. Good on paper, but a real let down for me now. Even a little would contribute to a sense of progression that keeps things interesting. Instead, battles now seem like a chore--why bother to design all these nifty abilities, skills, and weapons that can together make fights tense and exciting, but then make players feel like they'd rather just avoid battles altogether? To me, that's a disconnect.

 

Planescape: Torment could have done away with fight XP, because it was far from the focus of the game, and there really wasn't a lot of places it had to happen. But playing this, the encounters in the forest made me feel like I was starting BG again (a GOOD thing), terrified of woodland creatures (bears in BG, beetles here) utterly destroying Imoen and my character. When I managed to kill one--YESSS, like 600 xp or something, pretty significant so early on. It felt like an accomplishment, and it felt good! Later, this amount was barely anything to a 6 member party, and it was far easier--but the contrast there creates that rewarding sense of progression.

[JDizzle420]

Please increase melee range. Is it just me or does it seem like everyone is standing on top of each other in melee combat? I think increasing the melee attack range just a bit will help fix the crowded mosh pit cluster f****. I can't really tell what the hell is going on half the time. Other than that I'm finding combat quite enjoyable.

 

Maybe an increase of 10% - 15% across the board would be enough. (for everything, people, beetles, spiders, everything)

Edited August 21, 2014 by JDizzle420

[Tartantyco]

Aren't you supposed to be able to attack from a distance with spears? Because my guys sure as hell don't attack from a distance with spears.

[JDizzle420]

I think spears were designed so that you could attack while behind the front line fighters. I haven't tested them.

[Tartantyco]

Yeah, that's what they said in the videos, but my guy keeps running around my frontline to attack face-to-face.

[Darvon]

The combat is unresponsive and clumsy, and doesn't feel like it has any immediacy. The attacks, when they land, don't feel "chunky" (see, Doom2 supershotgun, Dark Souls Zweihander, Getting hit with an arrow in infinity engine, etc.). The combat animations in general are sluggish and weak.

The combat math seems to have been made complex just for the sake of being complex. If I'm playing a single character maybe I'll spend the time to squeeze out every last modifier and point, when I'm dragging six characters around I want them to be basically point and shoot. The systems backend is making ad&d look simple and intuitive, think about that.

Perhaps most damningly, it's just not fun. It's so far from fun that if I hadn't already backed I don't know I'd bother to check back later to see if massive changes brought it up to okay. The problems go way beyond what could be improved with number changes and bug fixes.

Edited August 21, 2014 by Darvon

[Regenshire]

I haven't played through a ton of content yet, but I wanted to weigh in on the combat system.

 

Initial Observations

·         Damage

o   There is a lot of fractional damage being done, with 0.1 to 0.9 being very common amounts of damage displayed in the log for this encounter.

o   Damage amounts vary greatly between combat pairings (Attacker vs Defender)

§  BB Fighter attacking Medreth was doing 25ish damage on each hit

§  BB Rogue attacking Boar Companion was doing between 0.5 to 0.9 per hit

o   The damage values displayed in the log do not always add up.

§  Example: Acc: 37 - Def: 40 = -3. Roll: 66 - 3 = 63 (Hit).19.7 - 10.0 = 4.9 Pierce Damage

·         How does this equal 4.9?  Based on the values shown, it would be 9.7.  Obviously, something is missing in the displayed equation, or something is buggy.

·         Hitting/Missing/Grazing

o   If the attacker has a higher Accuracy then the defender has a defensive stat, then it looks like you will never miss, the worse you will get is a Graze, even if the roll is a 1.

·         Duel Wielding

o   Duel Wielding appears to give a bonus to Deflection and does not do any damage.  If the “Auto-Paused: Weapon Ineffective” option is selected, this results in pausing everytime the character attacks, as the secondary weapon is “Ineffective” but it lists that they get a +5 Deflection bonus.

·         Healing Abilities such as Unbending

o   Don’t appear to be in-sync in the log with the actions that trigger them.  After activating Unbending, I started seeing “Heal Gord for 1 stamina” or “Heal Gord for 0 Stamina” messages.  These we seldom in sync with when the character was being hit in the log and would often appear after other effects such as Constant Recovery, causing confusion to what is triggering them.

 

 

Initial Suggestions

·         Damage

o   Round to whole numbers and get rid of all of the decimal points.  

o   Reduce the damage disparity between different attackers/weapons/ect.  Right now it feels like a character is either doing good damage, or they are basically doing below 1 damage per swing.  The low damage amounts are not very fun.  Consistently doing 2 or less damage while other characters are doing 25+ damage is a very large difference.

·         Hitting/Missing/Grazing

o   Increase the Miss Chance.  Right now, if you character has even a slightly better accuracy then their defense, you never miss, regardless of what you roll.  I can understand maybe having no miss chance if you stat far above the defense, but right now if it is 1 point above their defensive stat it appears you can't miss, you will always get a graze or better.  Maybe something like make it so a Roll + (Acc-Def) of <25 is a miss >=25 Graze, >=50 Hit, ect.

Edited August 21, 2014 by Regenshire

[Regenshire]

Also, I like the suggestion of a slider or some sort for combat speed, something like Paradox uses for their EU style games where you have 5 speed settings controlled by + or - (please remove them from the current hotkeys, very easy to accidently change speed when you are trying to scroll your screen with WASD).

 

Speed suggestions:

 

Slower (25%) - Slow (50%) - Normal (75%) - Fast (100%) - Faster (125%), with the percent being the current speed in the beta.

[limaxophobiacq]

The Interrupt mechanic feels obscure and, at this point, somewhat useless. What exactly do I interrupt? The enemy's attack? Only spellcasting? Something else? It feels like it's at most useful in particular situations, and for those situations you wouldn't necessarily need a high-Interrupt character, but only some per-encounter or per-rest high-Interrupt abilities; I also have a hunch such situations can be worked around with suitable counters, buffs, or debuffs.

 

Either make it more useful or drop it altogether in favor of something else tied to abilities.

 

This. While I'm in favour of dropping the system for everything but spells and maybe other more 'complex' abilities/attacks (and putting tags in  their description stating they're interruptable).

 

If you do decide to keep it, at least add something in the descriptions of different abilities and attacks that show how vulnerable the ability/attack is to interruption, also showing the value adjusted by your resolve, and tags on attacks that show how good they are at causing interrupts.

 

Because right now I absolutely have no idea when and how much my performance is being hurt by enemy interrupts, or how much my interrupts are hurting them, or what I could do about it outside of increasing Resolve/Perception even if I did know.

[DCParry]

One of the awesome features of the BG:EE series is that they've added each character's current action/command onto their portrait. This is such a great feature, because you can look at your portraits, and instantly know what all of your characters are doing (Or not doing!).

 

I know in PoE currently you can see a vague representation of your character's action above his/her head in the form of a generic sword, or a spell, but I really think it would be sweet if BG:EE's feature was implemented in PoE, so you could see exactly what your characters are doing or what they have been commanded to do without having to figure out who is who on the battlefield (Sometimes it's hard to quickly discern what is what on the battlefield, which is why being able to look at the portraits is so important).

 

Here's what it looks like in BG:EE:

 

bgactions.jpg

 

Here is a crude mock up of what it could look like in PoE:

 

poecombat.jpg

 

From the above image, just glancing at that I know the following information:

 

My archer is actively shooting at 'something'.

My fighter is actively attacking 'something'.

My rogue is doing *nothing* <--- Good to know!

My priest is casting a heal, or is going to cast a heal.

My wizard is about to cast rolling flame.

 

Please consider implementing this feature, or some kind of variant.

 

What do you all think?

 

Thanks,

 

ZOMG! THIS! THIS THIS THIS THIS!

 

Sorry, I was trying to articulate where some of my frustration was coming from, in that it was the inability to discern what a character was doing in the interval between my ordering him/her to do it, and they actually carrying out the action. I know part of this is getting used to the delay between the command/action and understanding how the speed and recovery modifiers work, but this would be a HUGE quality of life improvement. 

[Lioness]

 

[...]

 

Here is a crude mock up of what it could look like in PoE:

 

poecombat.jpg

 

From the above image, just glancing at that I know the following information:

 

My archer is actively shooting at 'something'.

My fighter is actively attacking 'something'.

My rogue is doing *nothing* <--- Good to know!

My priest is casting a heal, or is going to cast a heal.

My wizard is about to cast rolling flame.

 

Please consider implementing this feature, or some kind of variant.

 

What do you all think?

 

I think it is one of the best suggestions I have seen on the forum so far!

[cilantroll]

The combat is unresponsive and clumsy, and doesn't feel like it has any immediacy. The attacks, when they land, don't feel "chunky" (see, Doom2 supershotgun, Dark Souls Zweihander, Getting hit with an arrow in infinity engine, etc.). The combat animations in general are sluggish and weak.

 

The combat math seems to have been made complex just for the sake of being complex. If I'm playing a single character maybe I'll spend the time to squeeze out every last modifier and point, when I'm dragging six characters around I want them to be basically point and shoot. The systems backend is making ad&d look simple and intuitive, think about that.

 

Perhaps most damningly, it's just not fun. It's so far from fun that if I hadn't already backed I don't know I'd bother to check back later to see if massive changes brought it up to okay. The problems go way beyond what could be improved with number changes and bug fixes.

 

The more I read the many excellent combat suggestions by people here, and the more I spend playing the combat as it is...well...until (unless) the fighting changes a fair bit, I am definitely starting to feel the same way.

 

I have hope we'll be pleasantly surprised--I really want to believe it. But I get the sentiment that if I hadn't backed the project already, this taste of battle as is would've made me wait and see. Sad, but true...

 

On the flip side, I am so pleased Torment will be going with turn-based! Inherently, it just can't be chaotic and unresponsive. Honestly, I've only ever been so-so with turn-based combat--but when done right, it's an absolute blast! Recently, D: OS is probably the most fun I've ever had with a turn-based cRPG system (I never thought 'fast-paced' could apply to turn-based until then), and I can only hope TToN can be similarly rewarding.

[Rosbjerg]

The more I read the many excellent combat suggestions by people here, and the more I spend playing the combat as it is...well...until (unless) the fighting changes a fair bit, I am definitely starting to feel the same way.

 

This is exactly why they are doing the beta - to get valuable input to polish the final product. So great feedback is great, no need to feel bad about it

[PrimeJunta]

@cliantroll Look on the bright side: if you hadn't backed, you wouldn't be trying out the beta and you wouldn't know what the combat is like at this point.

 

It will get better. I promise.

[cilantroll]

@cliantroll Look on the bright side: if you hadn't backed, you wouldn't be trying out the beta and you wouldn't know what the combat is like at this point.

 

It will get better. I promise.

 

But I'd have been blissfully ignorant, buy the game at release, and then go WOW