Please make easy combat patch !!!

[Schrijvertje]

Following my ghoul- and some jackalmen-fights, I've reached the following conclusion.

The new battle system is hard when you start out, because your character's stats are too low to take full advantage of its possibilities. The longer you train, the higher your stats get and the more familiar you get with the system, the more moves you learn, the easier it becomes and also the more logical and yes, even beautiful the system becomes.

The better you become at dodging, parrying, attacking and counter-attacking, the more useful the new system becomes. But just starting out, you can bash as many buttons as you want, if your character can't execute the actions you're requesting, then no matter how well thought out the battle system is, you'll still get your ass kicked.

And getting your ass kicked isn't fun, so many people will bitch about it. Perhaps that'll diminish the more they play.

[Prio]

The difficulty with that is that the moment you gain double swings (or triple in case of the fighter), which effectively doubles your damage output, you'll mow through enemies in a heartbeat. That said, I'm contemplating adding a 50% single-hitpoint damage bonus to every attack after all other calculations are made, meaning you might end up needing just a few less swings to finish off an enemy.

If you do implement this, please shut it off when the game is set to "hard" difficulty.
:d

But just starting out, you can bash as many buttons as you want, if your character can't execute the actions you're requesting, then no matter how well thought out the battle system is, you'll still get your ass kicked.

One major difficulty, I think, is that your character's sidesteps, blocks, and parries do not always succeed until you get your stats up, and this is particularly frustrating for people who don't realize it. I was going to push for adding in some in-game warnings about the "fail chance", but I kind of forgot and never got around to it. http://usera.imagecave.com/scottbakalar ... ndTuit.jpg
Other actions, though, always succeed, though naturally you can't flail away at ultraspeed with your weapon.

Anyhow. This may sound plenty paternalistic, I'm sure, but keep in mind that there's no reason at all for you to start winning fights in this game -- by comfortable margins or otherwise -- one day 1, or day 2, or day 3, or many many days beyond that. There are sizable money rewards for dealing with the elementals, and it's really quite easy to deal with the first one without spending a thing, regardless of your class. You've got oodles and oodles of time to train, rest, get comfortable with the combat system, and acquaint yourself with the attack and defense patterns of the monsters.
All those shiny room-decorating extras will be available right up until Raseir, and those extras are just that -- extras, not requirements.

[Ambaryerno]

I'm not sure I'm sold on some of the departures made from the system of the original game. I'd have really liked to been given an option to use a "classic" combat mode without the special attacks, enemies throwing daggers or spells (Ghouls never struck me in the original as being intended to have the intelligence to hurl spells) and every hit being a "stun" blow (the biggest frustration I think I've run into so far is missing one block or dodge, and then getting hit three or four more times before my character can even respond, especially with the fairly narrow margin of error in the reaction times).

It's not that I'm OPPOSED to a more robust or advanced combat system in an adventure game, (I generally play a Fighter or Paladin so love the combat) but for me it just departs too far from the experience of the QFG combat system I grew up playing (I HATED the changes to the combat system made in Shadows of Darkness and Dragonfire. ESPECIALLY the latter, as the views made it impossible to tell where you were facing and was clunky and unwieldy under the BEST of circumstances. I'd like to see a VGA "downgrade" of Dragonfire just for THAT reason alone).

[Erpy]

I'm not sure I'm sold on some of the departures made from the system of the original game. I'd have really liked to been given an option to use a "classic" combat mode without the special attacks, enemies throwing daggers or spells (Ghouls never struck me in the original as being intended to have the intelligence to hurl spells) and every hit being a "stun" blow (the biggest frustration I think I've run into so far is missing one block or dodge, and then getting hit three or four more times before my character can even respond, especially with the fairly narrow margin of error in the reaction times).

It's not that I'm OPPOSED to a more robust or advanced combat system in an adventure game, (I generally play a Fighter or Paladin so love the combat) but for me it just departs too far from the experience of the QFG combat system I grew up playing (I HATED the changes to the combat system made in Shadows of Darkness and Dragonfire. ESPECIALLY the latter, as the views made it impossible to tell where you were facing and was clunky and unwieldy under the BEST of circumstances. I'd like to see a VGA "downgrade" of Dragonfire just for THAT reason alone).

If you play on the easiest difficulty setting, most advanced attacks from the enemies will be gone. As for the "stun-blow", the original QFG2 also made you recoil if you were succesfully hit. I figured it would be somewhat unbalanced if the enemy would always recoil if you hit it, yet you could shrug off the attacks and continually attack. Most of the time, if an enemy hits you and you recoil, pressing dodge or backwards will avoid a second attack, unless Rakeesh or Khaveen combos you, the multiple hits are from multiple enemies or you went toe-to-toe with a ghoul covered up to his neck in support spells. (speaking about the latter, if you look on wikipedia, al-ghuls weren't really mindless zombies but more like djinni of some sorts who were intelligent enough to shapeshift and lure people to their death, so the spell-casting variety isn't all that far-out)

I personally loved QFG4's battle system, though I didn't care much for QFG5's. (as you said, it became too chaotic) I don't think I would have added an additional combat system to the game though...having two alleyway systems and two dialogue systems was already a big pain to maintain.

[Luna]

I have had a chance to play with the combat system now, and I have to say, from a melee perspective - using a thief or fighter - I like it. From a magic using perspective I find it slow, sluggish and a pain to use most spells. Dazzle is the only one that feels remotely useful in combat. As a result it feels like you have to buffer every single spell with a dazzle. Everything else just seems to take too long, and in many cases the reaction time to a button press feels oddly long. I don't even mean the animation of charging the spell, as it were, I mean for even the animation to start...

Another concern is difficulty. One of the things I noticed going from the old QFG1 to the old QFGII is that if I'd really worked on my fighting skills in QFGI, when I got to QFGII I'd be able to face most starting challenges with a moderate chance of success. My feeling coming to the new QFGII is that it can be too slow, at times and not leave you feeling especially heroic - even if you maxed out your statistics in the first game.

My overall opinion is that the new combat system is a lot of fun, but needs a few tweaks here and there, especially where magic is concerned. My favorite characters were always Wizards, but I have to say, where the new combat system is concerned... use of magic comes off as troublesome - even as a wizard it's easier to just attack in melee and ignore magic entirely. It's good that in the melee sense a Wizard can be effective, don't get me wrong. But when foregoing magic altogether seems the better path to take... well, maybe I need to play with it some more... but right now I'm disliking the in combat use of magic quite a lot.

As for qfg IV's combat system... I would have liked it better if it had been from another angle, and allowed side stepping and such. Otherwise, yes, fun. I think a combination of QFGII and QFGIV's combat system could easily be considered my preferred and favorite if pulled off right.

[Erpy]

The charge time on spells was kinda added to compensate for the fact that projectile spells start out doing above-average damage and (especially after being upgraded) become extremely strong. I'm not sure what you mean with that it takes some time to even start casting. For me, the moment I press a button is the moment the hero moves into his spell-charging animation. In order to get the most out of spells, timing is important. A good time to cast spells is when an enemy is recovering from a knockdown. Both forcebolt and zap-charged hits knock enemies off their feet instantly.

[Luna]

There's a delay between all actions, and the hero never responds the instant I press a key. I press and about a second later he does his animation. Attempt of any action after a previous action results in anywhere from 1-2 seconds of wait time after the previous attack animation has finished.

Magic never goes through. Dazzle seems to be the only one fast enough. Force bolt is never an option for a knock down, as far as I've been able to use it (never) as things always move up and hit me in the middle of the animation... even if I've backed up. The only creature that doesn't seem to do this is the scorpion. For some reason that tends to be the only creature that doesn't try and stay in my face, and has a tendency to back away a lot. It makes magic 'too' effective again the scorpion... which I find odd. I find Scorpions very very easy in this version of the game. In the old version I found them horrible frustrating to fight.

Most creatures tend to stay in melee range, and always seem to move up and cancel a cast if I try and cast most spells. I find magic nearly impossible to use in combat. Out of combat is another thing altogether, no issue there. I can hit something with magic several times before it gets to me, usually. But in combat... I find it horribly inefficient. As a mage finding the melee more effective in combat is frustrating. The pretty pink dinosaurs and ghouls are the worst about it. I do remember getting a spell off once (that wasn't dazzle) in combat. A flame dart... It was blocked. o.O;;

Given all that... is my computer just running the game slow?

[Erpy]

Maybe. I don't recognize the issue of pressing a key and having it take a second or so before the animation starts.

[Goilveig]

Ghouls aren't really that nasty if you let them exhaust their mana pool first. The trick is to stay alive until they've weakened themselves.

I think the only real issue is that it's hard when you lack the practice to recognize all their animations and know what's coming next. It's those first fights when it just pulls weird trick after weird trick that get ya. Once you know what you're doing they're not bad.

I proposed enemies that kinda level with you near the beginning of development and fans were not too hot on that. It kinda eliminates a part of stat growth too.

You could do what they did in QFG1. At the beginning of the game, make it impossible to get the harder monsters as random combat (in there, it was experience >= 1000 that permitted the tougher monsters, during the day anyhow).

You could start off with lower stat characters getting predominantly brigands or 1-2 jackelmen, with maybe a chance for a scorpion, and then up the scorpion chance, up the jackelmen count, and add the terrorsaur and ghoul to the mix once you get more combat skills.

[Erpy]

Yeah, but QFG1 had 7 random monsters while QFG2 only had 5. (not including the multiple sized jackal packs) Not too much to spread out across all 16 days. It's not like you weren't running for your life all day long in QFG1 where everything but a goblin killed you in the first couple of days.

[skace]

When I first started playing QFG2, the difficulty coming from QFG1 was apparent. But as my character gained skill, the battle system became 300x more rewarding. I really think this is a very impressive system for a 2d adventure game. I'm on day 6 now, and I've dealt with 3 jackelman, plenty of bandits, plenty of scorpions, but I still haven't won a battle against a ghoul or a terror. To me, that feels very dynamic, and it took a long way to get here, when I originally started fighting, the only enemy that I could handle was the bandit. Now, part of getting better has been the stats, but an even larger part has been me, as a player, learning the combat and learning the enemies which I think is far more rewarding than saying "hey check it out I've got 200 STR from throwing rocks, I should be able to beat anything now right?".

I had one battle where I just sat there blocking all the swings of a bandit with parry, that was a really important battle because it helped me get my timing down really well. Also, when I finally started dodging the scorpions attacks was another big achievement that came long after my first kill. The cool thing is I've also got semi working strategies for the terror and the ghoul, they just haven't landed me any wins yet. When the wins do come though, extremely rewarding.

Very impressive job

[GrahamCracker4]

I had my diffuculty set on top from 100 strength and weapon use onward and I had no problem, in fact at some points I was disappointed with how easy it was to beat great heroes like Rakeesh or the Griffin when I maxed out my stats. I did all of it on Fighter though, and I just started playing as a Thief, so I don't know how the combat system works for a Wizard yet.

Here's how I did it: you have to get used to the combat system for one thing. Just get to the point where your fumbling around and pressing kick instead of dodge or walking forward instead of attacking or whatever.

Secondly, I think the hardest part by far is the very beginning before you get up your stats. If you don't like the action/rpg element of the game, set your difficulty to lowest and just train with Uhura. Even if you can't beat her at first (I couldn't), just fight her. After you reach about 75 for each of your main fighting skills you should be able to easily pick and choose some enemies you feel comfortable fighting against. Just stay close to a safe point like the entrance to Shapeir or the Oasis and walk back and forth until you meet an easy enemy (aka the Brigand) that gives you cash you can use to buy stamina and health pills. With stamina pills it becomes really easy to train with Uhura (or fight baddies) as much as you want. By 125 with your fighting stats (strength, agility, parry, weapon use, etc.) you should be able to beat any enemy in Shapeir and beat Uhura without even blinking, especially if you prefer having difficulty on the low side. Those who like combat (like me) and use the different moves (using the 7-9-7 combo beats just about everybody) you should be able to beat anybody at the highest difficulty if you're properly prepared.


Oh, and finally on being prepared *minor spoiler here*...



The ghoul is can be a REAL pain or a cake walk depending on what equipment you bring (especially footwear).

[DrJones]

Yeah, but QFG1 had 7 random monsters while QFG2 only had 5. (not including the multiple sized jackal packs) Not too much to spread out across all 16 days. It's not like you weren't running for your life all day long in QFG1 where everything but a goblin killed you in the first couple of days.

I, for one, wouldn't mind differently colored versions of the same monster.

[Erpy]

That sort of thing isn't exactly a quick and easy fix, as we'd have to redo and re-implement hundreds of animation frames.

[DrJones]

That sort of thing isn't exactly a quick and easy fix, as we'd have to redo and re-implement hundreds of animation frames.

It was a joke on classical arcade games. That solution can be easily done in true VGA where it's just a matter of a palette change, but unless your sprites are on PNG or other palette-based format, it would take too much effort.
Now that I think about it, how do you implement the day-night cycle on the sprites? Is a mask on the background, or is it a palette swap?

[Erpy]

Sorry for not picking it up. It's not the first time I've heard the suggestion. It's a lot of work, especially since the battle system uses very few fixed animations and mostly adresses frames directly.

As for the sprites, AGS tints them with a certain RGB-value, saturation and luminance. So you can't simply tint monster sprites to create alternatives, since the moment night started fading in, they'd look similar to their original versions again anyway.

[Goilveig]

As for the sprites, AGS tints them with a certain RGB-value, saturation and luminance. So you can't simply tint monster sprites to create alternatives, since the moment night started fading in, they'd look similar to their original versions again anyway.

Which wouldn't actually be unrealistic Human color vision at night is notoriously bad. And in Shapier, without a million electric lights polluting the night, there would be even less of an ability to see color.

[DrJones]

Which wouldn't actually be unrealistic Human color vision at night is notoriously bad. And in Shapier, without a million electric lights polluting the night, there would be even less of an ability to see color.

Except that your argument only applies once night has arrived, and the palette problem Erpy mentions happens as soon the screen starts to fade slowly to darkness. That red brigand will become a blue brigand in just a frame, when the sun chooses it's a good moment to take a nap!

The problem with this approach seems to be AGS limitations in the way it manages the sprites, or limitations resulting of the design of the combat system, or both. In any case, it's too late to change it now.

[Tij]

I loved the game ENTIRELY. You guys did an utterly awesome job. xD; But, I wanted to comment on a few things, so I finally made an account here. ^_^

I only have two complaints about the battle system.

1) Not enough monsters
2) A thief throwing a dagger in battle mode seems to have a major disadvantage..


I got these values using my thief character at fully maxed stats, using an ordinary stopwatch.
Uncharged flamedart takes approx 1.10 ± 0.05 seconds to cast
Throwing a dagger takes approx 0.90 ± 0.05 seconds
A brigand throwing a dagger takes approx 0.35 ± 0.05 seconds

I got these values counting the number of hits on average it too using one type of weapon to defeat a monster, then averaging that out with their listed health.
Uncharged flamedart does approx 30 ± 10 dmg per strike
Throwing a dagger does on approx average, 10 ± 3 dmg per strike
A brigand throwing a dagger does as read in the book, 10 dmg per strike

Basically... Throwing a dagger is too sluggish in comparison to monster's projectiles, and too low of damage for the massive amount of time being risked 'casting' in comparison to the general magical spells.

Yes, I get the idea that Thiefs have a *MASSIVE* sneak attack damage bonus to make up for their lackings in combat... but that requires the thief to be Sneaking before he encounters the fight, requires the throw to be successful (Which requires me at least to have to turn down the game speed to practically nothing so I can make sure I hit the target), and means, we can't take our Saurus with us, thus could easily get lost in the desert. In addition, (Though least concerning) we have to walk very, very slowly as we sneak. -- And it also requires the player to have *knowledge* that there is a massive sneak attack damage bonus, which isn't obvious unless the person actually tested it...

Finally, I kind of think thieves should have their own unique advantage in the ew battle system too. They're support to be really good, really fast at throwing daggers, right?... so... Maybe, thief-only, throwing speed decreases as throwing stat increases? .. ^_^ I think 0.55 (Above a brigand still, but still fast enough to be noticablely different from a magical spell) would be great. ;D

[Thyme in Lost]

First character I played was a Mage.
Once I figured out how to throw spells, I knew I loved the combat system for Mages.
I've also played around with a Fighter, I still enjoy the combat system. Then again,
I also play on easy, so my experience my not be the same as those who play on harder levels.

[Prio]

A thief is indeed in trouble if they try to get in a throwing match with a brigand; I tended to avoid facing brigands with my thieves for this reason. However:

A thief with passable throwing ability and a sensible (read: large) supply of daggers has an enormous advantage against scorpions and jackpacks.
A thief fighting an al-ghul with daggers will have a tricky time of it, but it won't really be as bad as against a brigand (the ghoul is limited by its mp bar), and every class has a rough time with the al-ghul.
Even if backstabs aren't an obvious concept, the idea of sneaking around the desert should be; a thief thus gets a fairly easy degree of control over their fights that other classes don't have. (Other classes are forced to flee around the desert like idiots every single time they see something they don't like.)
A thief merely needs to HAND the ground and the corpse post-combat to recover all of his projectile ammo. The mage's situation is not nearly as easy, quick, or inexpensive.
If the thief does fight a brigand, he can knock the thug down with melee, then time his throw to hit the brigand just as he stands back up.
The brigand also has the least hitpoints of all monsters, of course, so if you've got to be disadvantaged against a monster, the brigand is a pretty good one to have that disadvantage against.

[JustLuke32]

Love the remake, but after playing it a while I've come to the conclusion that I'm not too keen on the combat. The enhancements might look good on paper, but I think that they unbalance the game. For me, the combat in QfG games was a necessary evil (except for the fully automated combat system in QfG4 and the timing based system in QfG3) - so making it deeper and more complex, thereby forcing the player to invest more time and effort in it, is a mistake. An "easier and simpler" combat patch would be great.

[Erpy]

Love the remake, but after playing it a while I've come to the conclusion that I'm not too keen on the combat. The enhancements might look good on paper, but I think that they unbalance the game. For me, the combat in QfG games was a necessary evil (except for the fully automated combat system in QfG4 and the timing based system in QfG3) - so making it deeper and more complex, thereby forcing the player to invest more time and effort in it, is a mistake. An "easier and simpler" combat patch would be great.

Really? I personally never saw combat in the series as a necessary evil. To me, it was as much part of the games as dialogue trees, repeating an action 50 times in order to raise a stat and corny puns were. I welcomed the change when QFG1VGA added made battle not be just about stats, but also about timing and a bit of planning a strategy. (to a limited degree) After getting used to the controls (which took some time), I also enjoyed the QFG4 battles a lot more than its early predecessors. I thought that for an aspect that controlled a lot of the player's stats, the early battle systems were somewhat one-dimensional, making relentless attacking more rewarding than careful balance of offense and defense. (despite what the manuals told you)

I realize that arcade sequences in an adventure are always somewhat controversial, but my opinion was that if one can't leave out the combat, one might as well make it more interesting to play so it becomes more an aspect of the game itself, rather than something that's meant to be over and done with as quickly as possible. Of course "interesting" remains a term that's highly personal and subjective.

[papste]

I have to agree that combat in QFG series was a necessary evil but only because combat itself was uninteresting and boring (ie. mashing afew buttons). QFG2 VGA actually made combat interesting which i really enjoyed for the first time in a QFG game. Personally i hated combat in all other QFG games including no4 Shadows of Darkness.

My only complain about combat in QFG2 VGA is that there isn't enough monsters to fight;p

Would be cool if the difficulty slider was able to also control the frequency of the encounters in the desert, for the people that wanted more combat in order to fill days like certain days between the elementals where nothing else exciting happens in the game. That is a perfect opportunity to raise your stats anyway. So it would be cool if i could increase the difficulty and at the same time increase the frequency at which the encounters spawn in the desert (sometimes i have to traverse 20 or more screens for a monster to show up).

[El Ravager]

The first time I played through the game I did so as a fighter, and I had a really hard time getting a handle on the combat system. I had to use easy mode and the co-pilot throughout most of the game; it got pretty annoying after awhile. But now I'm on my second play-through (as a thief this time) and I've taken the time to practice combat with Uhura repeatedly, and the combat system has really grown on me. Even as a thief, I'm doing very well and haven't lost a real fight yet (I've got difficulty set to medium right now.) Now that I've figured out various tactics, the idiosyncrasies of the system, etc., I can't wait to do another play-through as a fighter and really spend a lot of time fighting.

All that to say...if the combat system seems ridiculously hard, just keep practicing! Once you get used to the controls, it's actually a lot of fun!