Combat isn't too hard or too easy but is far too long

[Riflemann]

Every turn takes forever because of the incredibly constrained action economy compared to Divinity but without reducing the number of combatants to match. In divinity you could have up to 6 AP, which could get you the equivalent of 2-3 full actions so it made sense to have large fights with lots of targets. Here you only have one main action a turn that's way less likely to succeed due to the nature of low level combat in DnD.

It feels like there are sometimes up to two minutes between my characters turns depending on which fights you're in as you watch a horde of goblins awkwardly shuffle around, taking ten solid seconds of thinking time between actions. It's excruciating without going out of your way to exploit past things.

[SnarkOne]

I don't think we have enough threads for this. Please open up a new one to respond to this discussion... Thank you.

In all seriousness, I agree that combat is too long but not for the reasons you listed. I don't care for the action economy since that's the game mechanic of D&D. I think the problem arises in the wait time and prolonged animations of AI. If the AI can make up their mind on what action to take in about 1-2 seconds then it'll be fine, but every time we have to wait 5-10 seconds, or more, so the AI can calculate what sort of action to take against you.
Dash animation are too long, Jump animations are rigid and long, attacking animations can be reduced by 20-40% etc...
Frankly I don't care if they take a good or a bad action, the player will adapt to the situation, I want them to be more decisive... which will take development time. So we can simply just wait.

[Izunyami]

Man, this new thread meta is getting exciting.

I don't think combat is quite too long but it does vary a bit. Some fights can drag a bit, for sure. Definitely in the larger fights, they can drag quite awhile which can be frustrating; it's why I never cared much for limited/singular action style games unless it's done similarly to FFT or Tactics Ogre.

[N/A]

Originally posted by Riflemann:

It feels like there are sometimes up to two minutes between my characters turns depending on which fights you're in as you watch a horde of goblins awkwardly shuffle around, taking ten solid seconds of thinking time between actions. It's excruciating without going out of your way to exploit past things.

Everyone stop right now
THIS is the correct take. This ♥♥♥♥ right here is why I can't ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ stand the goblin battles in this game so far. Finally someone knows my pain

[Jack Hawklight]

These threads have existed since the start of the game. The conclusions most people came to was that they need to work on the AI so it will think less and take turns more quickly. Also that a speed up enemy animations option should be available.

[Izunyami]

Is this the One Thread. The Thread to unite them? Bind them together and bring us together in unity?

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

With the exception of a couple fights (goblins in the courtyard of the ruined temple comes to mind) I don't feel that combat takes too long at all.

And many conflicts can be avoided. You don't actually need to fight everything in this game.

[Tuco]

The AI "hanging up" to think the next moves is clearly an unintended side effect and something that will improve over time ( or at least, it did with DOS 2 compared to its early versions. It seems reasonable to expect the same here).

That aside, I'm actually generally satisfied with the compromise between overall pace and visual presentation that the current build strikes.
Things strike a good balance between looking good and moving fast enough.

I know that if it was for some people's we'd have just everything sped up to 10X and every 3D model in the game replaced with an abstract 2D portrait "because it's faster", but hey, you'll never make everyone happy anyway.

[Jack Hawklight]

Personally, I wouldn't even use the option to speed it up even if they made one. I actually enjoy watching the enemy moves and thinking about what I am going to do next... and based on what the enemy does how it changes what I'm going to do next. But I know a lot of people just want it speedier. So I support the option for it.

[dolby]

6 man party would fixs those long waits between turns cos the more people you control the better it feels tested with a mod and you can see it with temp druid companion in gobo camp and pets. But it's true already had treads about this, Ai needs work still.

Free camera would help as well cos right now i think camera needs to pan first before the enemy goes and you could see around the battlefield better.
Removing dash as cast animation would save afew seconds as well.
Improved animations for geting close to target would improve the feel of the combat as well, but not really make it faster so that one is just visual improvement.

[God Queen 158]

There was a noticeable difference in combat speed in either patch 4 or current patch 5. There used to be a couple seconds before an enemy would make its move. Now, when its the enemy's turn, they tend to start executing their move before the camera even flicks over to them.

It makes easier fights pretty satisfying when you just click a button, end turn, enemy does their thing, back to you, and it just flows so nicely now.

Larger fights are still kind of annoying, but each patch seems to make them less of a slough - that or I've played the game too much and learned to multitask while I wait for 12 AIs to make their move before its my turn again.

[NixAhmose]

Personally I think the speed for most encounters are fine, but there are some exceptions. There is the goblin base is the most obvious one, though I don't mind that one too much since I feel like that's an encounter you're not even suppose to win to begin with. The one I have particular issue with is when you attack the grove alongside the goblins. Between all the civilian npcs that don't do anything and yet still take turn space, all the enemies/allies on screen, and the amount of space between everyone, that fight just takes so long and you really don't feel like you're doing anything throughout the whole thing.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Originally posted by NixAhmose:

Personally I think the speed for most encounters are fine, but there are some exceptions. There is the goblin base is the most obvious one, though I don't mind that one too much since I feel like that's an encounter you're not even suppose to win to begin with. The one I have particular issue with is when you attack the grove alongside the goblins. Between all the civilian npcs that don't do anything and yet still take turn space, all the enemies/allies on screen, and the amount of space between everyone, that fight just takes so long and you really don't feel like you're doing anything throughout the whole thing.

The phase spiders are a pita if you let all the eggs hatch (15 of them I think).

[Space Dog]

Geez, it's almost like they should have kept the combat real time to make it go faster.

[Tuco]

Originally posted by Space Dog:

Geez, it's almost like they should have kept the combat real time to make it go faster.

Eh, I'm not in a hurry anyway.

[Hobocop]

Originally posted by Space Dog:

Geez, it's almost like they should have kept the combat real time to make it go faster.

Every time one of these games comes out with real-time combat, it's invariably accompanied by filler combat for the sake of combat.

So, no thanks.