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Alternatives to battle system?

I am really not a fan of this new battle system announced. I do understand that it is early days and nothing is set in stone but the proposed system has serious problems which many people have pointed out- makes battle tactics almost irrelevant, creates Zerg etc.

It’s great that SBS shares their ideas with us like this as it lets them gauge our reaction. Let’s try and be constructive. I think the current system is not all bad and with some changes could be great. Here are some ideas:

1.When a player dies their corpse should not simply get up again. This completely ruins battle lines and tactics. They should instead spawn at the largest concentration of their team at the ‘back’ (the side which has the lowest concentration of the enemy) this then feels more like reinforcements and maintains battle lines.

2.Remove bloodlust, It just doesn’t make sense. A general should never have to ask themselves“should I kill a large amount of the enemy at once or will that backfire”. The first engagement is meant to be tense and epic but with the bloodlust mechanic you are just waiting for the ‘real’ battle to begin.

3.Perhaps a life cap of say 3 would be preferable to the increasing timer mechanic. It would give each life the feeling of true value and create caution and potential for routs not to mention reduce boredom waiting for a timer. Spirit loss for each death. And on third death their corpse can be fully looted.

4.Create an officer system, so each unit of troops the general commands on his/her battle map is led by an officer. Troops of that unit receiving a buff for being within a certain radius of their officer. This would encourage units to stick together and run back to their unit after death. If an officer dies they could respawn to the highest concentration of their unit. If an officer loses 3 lives the unit can no longer get the buff.

5.Another alternative to the battle-timer is while players wait on the death timer they fight a battle in the Astral Plane against dead enemy players. Winning in the Astral Plane could provide a buff to main battle or just help pass the time.

Please share your ideas on how you would change the battle system. Thanks for reading👍


1/7/2019 6:23:49 AM #1

My feedback on the ideas here:

1: Their corpse doesn't simply get back up again. Not out of the same context as the rest of the world, anyhow, from what we've read so far. A person still has to spirit walk. Still has to find their body. And still has to deal with any penalties SbS chooses to attach to resurrection, along with possibly having had their weapon (at least) and armour looted, rendering them useless to combat until they can acquire another.

2: Bloodlust, as Labbe's pointed out in another thread, is simply a temporary bar on spirit loss after one's first death. It's not a new mechanic, they've talked about it in the past as a means of ensuring that griefers can't destroy people's sparks by repeatedly killing them and warriors at war aren't burning through entire sparks in the course of a few battles. It changes nothing about combat except for ensuring that securing the field is as important as actually being able to defeat the enemy.

3: Combat "lives" will be softcapped with SbS's existing mechanic. If it takes progressively longer to get back up after dying - even accounting for spirit walk time, into which we have to factor fame for anyone who isn't a nameless nobody - people are eventually going to be waiting for a decent amount of time to be able to resurrect, and on a field of battle, getting up straight away without your section of the field being secured is going to be extremely dangerous, with or without resurrection penalties. I don't feel this needs adjustment. It just needs an appropriately long resurrection delay for successive deaths, with the death mechanic for not entering one's body during spirit walks suspended once the corpse is actually found so you're not just ebbing into nothingness because you happen to have died a few times recently in combat.

4: I like the first half of this, and feel that morale and command bonuses would be excellent additions to the warfare system.

5: Not sure how I feel about this one. Would we even have our gear in the astral plane? Would we be able to encounter other souls? If so, would interaction be possible? We know next to nothing about spirit walking at this stage, but I don't think it would make sense to be able to fight in the spirit world. Not unless there's predatory entities roaming it that need to be fought off in the course of a spirit walk, which could be interesting play... if a bit harsh on players who don't know what they're doing.

Personally the only thing I'd really want changed is for staged battles to simply operate as normal combat, with the exception of the battle table being involved for command purposes. Combat doesn't need training wheels or extra scaffolding. We don't need additional objectives; the goal is the goal of whoever leads the force, and that's all that's really needed to make it a battle.


To touch Divinity, one must be prepared to brave Reality.

1/7/2019 12:19:26 PM #2

Regarding the 5th point:

Right now all depictions of the astral plane has shown us a jolly colourful place. It would be interesting if for battles/war this becomes flipped and instead you are in karcion(hell) and you have to fight your way back to your body.

Doesnt have to be other players, could be npcs that represent the other dead soldiers. But you should be able to defeat them fairly easily cuz you will be outnumbered a lot. Spirit walking is something SBS can go ham with through their creativity. It can feel like the games Journey or Abzu.

Now if something like this was implemented im sure even if players did their best to avoid that long timer (spirit walk) they would still enjoy it more instead of tilting incase they did die.


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1/7/2019 3:26:23 PM #3

Staged battles involve a table, and until SBS says otherwise we dont need a staged battle in order to take things over. Staged battles will be fun but will not be the "Norm" in an in game war.


1/7/2019 5:55:23 PM #4

Posted By Wolfguarde at 01:23 AM - Mon Jan 07 2019

1: Their corpse doesn't simply get back up again. Not out of the same context as the rest of the world, anyhow, from what we've read so far. A person still has to spirit walk. Still has to find their body. And still has to deal with any penalties SbS chooses to attach to resurrection, along with possibly having had their weapon (at least) and armour looted, rendering them useless to combat until they can acquire another.

Maybe I misread, but that doesn't seem like it fixes the problem. The OP was talking about how, after you've spirit walked back to your corpse, you'll revive at that exact location. That would kill any semblance of a battle line and encourage corpse camping.


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1/7/2019 6:55:10 PM #5

Posted By TheCoz at 07:26 AM - Mon Jan 07 2019

Staged battles involve a table, and until SBS says otherwise we dont need a staged battle in order to take things over. Staged battles will be fun but will not be the "Norm" in an in game war.

You absolutely need a staged battle to take something over. You can't claim the seat of your opponent without a siege, which is a type of staged battle.

Further, it's in an army's interest to make sure they participate in staged battles, otherwise the bloodlust mechanic will not apply and they risk too much.


1/7/2019 7:17:40 PM #6

Posted By Bombastus at 12:55 PM - Mon Jan 07 2019

Posted By TheCoz at 07:26 AM - Mon Jan 07 2019

Staged battles involve a table, and until SBS says otherwise we dont need a staged battle in order to take things over. Staged battles will be fun but will not be the "Norm" in an in game war.

You absolutely need a staged battle to take something over. You can't claim the seat of your opponent without a siege, which is a type of staged battle.

Further, it's in an army's interest to make sure they participate in staged battles, otherwise the bloodlust mechanic will not apply and they risk too much.

To add on to this, I expect that staged battles will be critical to managing all of the NPC / OPC characters that will be present during wars.

As to point #1 from the OP, I don’t recall SBS stating where you will respawn in pitched battles so this seems to be worrying over an assumption that very well may be wrong.


1/7/2019 7:26:40 PM #7

Posted By Bombastus at 7:55 PM - Mon Jan 07 2019

Posted By TheCoz at 07:26 AM - Mon Jan 07 2019

Staged battles involve a table, and until SBS says otherwise we dont need a staged battle in order to take things over. Staged battles will be fun but will not be the "Norm" in an in game war.

You absolutely need a staged battle to take something over. You can't claim the seat of your opponent without a siege, which is a type of staged battle.

Further, it's in an army's interest to make sure they participate in staged battles, otherwise the bloodlust mechanic will not apply and they risk too much.

I'm quite sure its possible to besiege someone just like that. You can just sit around the enemies castle and kill everyone that wants to go in or out. Sooner or later, the defenders surrender or starve. In both cases, you have won. Why should that require a staged battle? If everyone is dead, there is a power-vacuum and if no one goes in to fill it, its yours, if you have a CB, isnt it? Name any mechanic we currently know that would prevent someone from sieging in this way.

The staged battle mechanism is just there to speed that up. But I really see no reason to not just walk into the enemies city normally, kill everyone, steal the enemies ring of power and claim his seat. Sure, having a battle table makes it much easier to coordinate your forces, if your army is bigger. But if your army is just 20 people and you are all in discord... what do you need it for?

Afaik, the bloodlust mechanic is present everywhere. In staged battles, the first spirit loss is just much higher than normally. But everywhere, after your first spirit loss, there is some time without spirit loss. Thats an anti-griefer-mechanic. I just dont see why we need an anti-griefing-mechanic on a staged battlefield. So if anything, the risk to loose your full spark is HIGHER in a staged battlefield.

Still, we dont know enough about the system to really discuss it in the depths we do. All could change, if some unknown components are different than people think. As I see it, the battle table is nice for coordination and maybe required, if your army is big or consists of NPCs. Besides that, I dont see the point. The whole mechanic could just as well not exist and sieging or battling would still work.


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1/7/2019 8:09:27 PM #8

Posted By Gromschlog at 11:26 AM - Mon Jan 07 2019

I'm quite sure its possible to besiege someone just like that. You can just sit around the enemies castle and kill everyone that wants to go in or out. Sooner or later, the defenders surrender or starve. In both cases, you have won. Why should that require a staged battle? If everyone is dead, there is a power-vacuum and if no one goes in to fill it, its yours, if you have a CB, isnt it? Name any mechanic we currently know that would prevent someone from sieging in this way.

The CB mechanic prevents it. You can't capture a city without following the law of war, which means seeking official casus belli and staging official battles. Anything less is just a raid or a skirmish.

The staged battle mechanism is just there to speed that up. But I really see no reason to not just walk into the enemies city normally, kill everyone, steal the enemies ring of power and claim his seat.

The reasons are manifold. There isn't a city in Elyria that will allow you to bring a fully armed force of troops into a city. If you sneak them in, and rise up from within you could kill lots of people, but you're not fighting a staged battle, so you can't win the city or the title.

Also, everyone you kill is considered a murder, not legal war-related casualty. The soul loss for murder is suspended in a staged battle. Remember, there is NO LIMIT to the soul loss you can experience for committing murder. If you ride into town and kill everyone without a staged battle, when the King's troops arrive, anyone they capture will get a HUGE penalty. And that's another thing. If you're guilty of murder, you can be captured. If you're fighting a legal war, no one can capture you and haul you off to the county courthouse.

Sure, having a battle table makes it much easier to coordinate your forces, if your army is bigger. But if your army is just 20 people and you are all in discord... what do you need it for?

You need it to establish a battlefield, to protect your troops from soul loss, and to command NPC troops. Even if you have no NPC troops to command (unlikely), those other elements will be vital to your success.


1/7/2019 9:15:09 PM #9

Posted By Bombastus at 9:09 PM - Mon Jan 07 2019

Posted By Gromschlog at 11:26 AM - Mon Jan 07 2019

I'm quite sure its possible to besiege someone just like that. You can just sit around the enemies castle and kill everyone that wants to go in or out. Sooner or later, the defenders surrender or starve. In both cases, you have won. Why should that require a staged battle? If everyone is dead, there is a power-vacuum and if no one goes in to fill it, its yours, if you have a CB, isnt it? Name any mechanic we currently know that would prevent someone from sieging in this way.

The CB mechanic prevents it. You can't capture a city without following the law of war, which means seeking official casus belli and staging official battles. Anything less is just a raid or a skirmish.

well... if thats the case, then I can see where the outcry some show comes from. Is there any official source, that the only way to fulfill a CB is via staged battles? Does that in the other way mean, that there are no staged battles without CB?

I thought, you could just declare war against someone and as soon as the game recognizes the war, war-rules apply. Didn't know, that the game limits wars to staged battles, but as someone that isnt really interested in the whole combat thingy, I like it that way.

So... if only in staged battles, war-rules apply... does this mean attacking supply and all that is a war-crime in CoE, which would be punished by everyone? If the only way to cut supply-lines is setting up a table and claiming a staged battle on for example a mine or some farms, then that at least allows everyone thats not interested in fighting to run away...

And I remember some discussions about soul-affliction still being the case in war. You wont be punished for killing people in a battlefield, but your soul will still get darker the more you slaughter.


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1/7/2019 10:15:40 PM #10

If you are AT WAR then you have CB on all enemy stuff and things ;)

So myself and a few other Barons could break off from the main force and take another fort etc over without a "staged battle". We just go in...take it...and yea. lol

While Bombastus waits for proper siege lines to be drawn up and a cool table to be plopped down we will be bangin down the gate :D

Dunno what you're smoking


1/7/2019 11:49:50 PM #11

Posted By TheCoz at 2:15 PM - Mon Jan 07 2019

If you are AT WAR then you have CB on all enemy stuff and things ;)

So myself and a few other Barons could break off from the main force and take another fort etc over without a "staged battle". We just go in...take it...and yea. lol

How would you "take" it? How does the game know you own it? How do NPCs know you are their rightful lord? How does the game even know your friends helping you take the fort are on your side? How does it distinguish combatant from bystander? The obvious answer, is the table.

While Bombastus waits for proper siege lines to be drawn up and a cool table to be plopped down we will be bangin down the gate :D

It's amusing that all your examples seem to involve your ability to act without resistance. If I'm defending, I don't need to wait for anything. I just shoot the people running at my gate with a battering ram.

Dunno what you're smoking

Obviously something less potent than whatever you got.


1/8/2019 3:26:55 AM #12

Lol

So holding the land use tablenisnt a thing anymore? How does the game not understand...wtf? Lol

So you’re saying the only way to take over anything is to siege it? Are you dull or just not paying attention?

Why does the game need to know who is on my side? If they are with me then they are on my side? What’s your point? How does the game register that we took the place over? Well we didn’t get ousted? Why do you not understand this? Because you’re a fish eyed foo.

Rightful lord? Well they’d be dead sooooo who cares? The game knows I own it cuz I’m either sitting in the chair long enough ooooooor I burned it all down...?

Why Would the game not know? Is no one different until war is declared? Are kingdom lines blurred? Then what’s the point of coats of arms? What’s the point of uniforms? What’s the point of any distinguishing dress or symbols if the NPCS are blind until a table is deployed?

Are you being for real or just a troll?

You make cute art but obvie can’t absorb information correctly.

Why would I take your place over? Because you would be toooo busy reeeeing about the rules 😂

Refine your facts bud I don’t need a CB I don’t need a war table I just need my peeps and some luck


1/8/2019 4:36:07 AM #13

Posted By Orisoll at 03:55 AM - Tue Jan 08 2019

Posted By Wolfguarde at 01:23 AM - Mon Jan 07 2019

1: Their corpse doesn't simply get back up again. Not out of the same context as the rest of the world, anyhow, from what we've read so far. A person still has to spirit walk. Still has to find their body. And still has to deal with any penalties SbS chooses to attach to resurrection, along with possibly having had their weapon (at least) and armour looted, rendering them useless to combat until they can acquire another.

Maybe I misread, but that doesn't seem like it fixes the problem. The OP was talking about how, after you've spirit walked back to your corpse, you'll revive at that exact location. That would kill any semblance of a battle line and encourage corpse camping.

I don't see corpse camping as an issue here, personally. I see it as part of field control. CoE's mechanics as they're currently slated will define warfare differently to what we're used to in the real world. Disarming and/or controlling the enemy's fallen will be as much a factor as actually putting them down. While not much can be said before we can actually jump into alpha and test it, I feel that in the context of a game with respawn mechanics this is an acceptable twist on conventional large-scale PvP.

Posted By Bombastus at 06:09 AM - Tue Jan 08 2019

The CB mechanic prevents it. You can't capture a city without following the law of war, which means seeking official casus belli and staging official battles. Anything less is just a raid or a skirmish.

While I don't agree with Coz's method of delivery, he's got a point regarding conquest. Even if the game doesn't legally recognise ownership, sieging and taking a town or city without adhering to the lawful process will still result in effective ownership in all but written law. SbS needs to address this, because if they attach mechanics such as NPC behaviour to legal ownership there's going to be a lot of problems down the track when people start playing at warfare without going through the proper channels. This is one area of content that could be bungled quite badly if they try to enforce too many rules regarding the exact way one goes about playing.

Also, everyone you kill is considered a murder, not legal war-related casualty. The soul loss for murder is suspended in a staged battle. Remember, there is NO LIMIT to the soul loss you can experience for committing murder. If you ride into town and kill everyone without a staged battle, when the King's troops arrive, anyone they capture will get a HUGE penalty. And that's another thing. If you're guilty of murder, you can be captured. If you're fighting a legal war, no one can capture you and haul you off to the county courthouse.

This is a very valid point, but again, I'd point back to my previous point. People are going to have issues with being punished for doing the same thing they'd be doing anyway if they followed what the game defines as proper procedure. I feel that, similarly to SbS's original plan for gathering and crafting to involve minigames, the currently slated mechanics of pitched battle add unnecessary steps to warfare that will break up the flow of play. I honestly think a lot of players - particularly those players we're going to need to put down at launch to maintain the game's stability - are going to ignore pitched battle mechanics entirely, leading to a lot of early warfare that doesn't use those mechanics at all. Depending on how we take to that trend, it may wind up becoming the norm for future play.

Soul loss and legal sanction at this stage are the only factors I can imagine needing a battle table for, and on paper, these are good incentives to use the scaffolding these mechanics will provide. I just don't think that's going to fully transition over into practice when the game's up and running, and I can see that causing problems in the long run.


To touch Divinity, one must be prepared to brave Reality.

1/8/2019 5:39:35 AM #14

Posted By Wolfguarde at 8:36 PM - Mon Jan 07 2019

While I don't agree with Coz's method of delivery, he's got a point regarding conquest. Even if the game doesn't legally recognise ownership, sieging and taking a town or city without adhering to the lawful process will still result in effective ownership in all but written law. SbS needs to address this, because if they attach mechanics such as NPC behaviour to legal ownership there's going to be a lot of problems down the track when people start playing at warfare without going through the proper channels. This is one area of content that could be bungled quite badly if they try to enforce too many rules regarding the exact way one goes about playing.

De facto ownership by hostile occupation isn't sustainable. No one needs a casus belli to oust you, any laws you ordain are not enforced by the game, you can't legally collect taxes, you can't use the town or land management tables, no NPCs are going to follow your authority--you'll need to use constant threat of violence and a whole lot of micromanaging to get anything productive out of the experience. And even then, people can just leave. Sure, you could import your own workers, but they won't have any support from the in-game constructs designed to make administering a settlement work.

Meanwhile, the Kings army is marching your way. They won't lose any soul for killing you, and their NPCs will happily help.

This is a very valid point, but again, I'd point back to my previous point. People are going to have issues with being punished for doing the same thing they'd be doing anyway if they followed what the game defines as proper procedure. I feel that, similarly to SbS's original plan for gathering and crafting to involve minigames, the currently slated mechanics of pitched battle add unnecessary steps to warfare that will break up the flow of play. I honestly think a lot of players - particularly those players we're going to need to put down at launch to maintain the game's stability - are going to ignore pitched battle mechanics entirely, leading to a lot of early warfare that doesn't use those mechanics at all. Depending on how we take to that trend, it may wind up becoming the norm for future play.

Soul loss and legal sanction at this stage are the only factors I can imagine needing a battle table for, and on paper, these are good incentives to use the scaffolding these mechanics will provide. I just don't think that's going to fully transition over into practice when the game's up and running, and I can see that causing problems in the long run.

I think you have valid concerns, certainly. But I think one of the best things about the proposed systems they are constructing is they build permeable barriers that guide the options a player is likely to take while leaving room for the extremists to risk it all. The legal system is designed to penalize certain behaviors, but never restrict them. The balancing point will have to be addressed by how easily the laws are enforced and how dire the consequences are for sidestepping them. I expect we'll see that in testing.


1/8/2019 5:57:28 AM #15

I feel like if the generals or officers want to fight an organized battle they should send messengers or emisaries and arrange something like pitched battles without a mechanic. Im sure the crew felt it needed some streamlining which could be the case.

Any real campaign will require a forward command post/encampment/or fort regardless of a pitched battles or not. And I think it should be up to a court or council on if you can legally attack or that the king will recognize your claim or outcome. It does not require pitched battles to do it.

If a kingdom attacks they wont be worrying about land rights. Likewise renegade duchies probably won care about land rights if they are making a power move on the kingdom.

I plan to run every other line would be pri/sec armed with the second line would just be armed with secondary weapons to equip themselves as well as use their own weapons against themselves. Giving them back their own weapons with less duribility sounds like a bonus. Eventually they will start breaking.

But even if you dont use lawful pitched battles if you keep the land for 28 days and hold it 28 you also legally own it then also. Squaters rights. Especially if you can stand your ground for 56 days.


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