Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Big problems with elemental surface damage.

Elemental surfaces seem to share a generic setting rather than being individually tweaked for balance and reason.

For example, it make sense for an icy surface to require a balance check for every step the character makes across it. However, it does not make sense for additional damage to be applied for every additional step someone makes through a fire or poison cloud.

In the case of fire, once you're burning from fire, you're burning. Whether you stand still in one patch of it or move through the volume should make no difference - you're already on fire. The same applies to poison. Either I'm poisoned or I'm not - I am not getting "poisoned again" with each step. The additional damage should come over time, not over distance.

When an opponent applies an elemental state and surface (like fire or poison) to my character, I take far more damage trying to move out of the surface than just standing in it and riding it out for a few turns. That's just silly. Yes, you should take damage every *turn* you're standing in fire and poison, and if it takes you several *turns* to move out of a field of fire or poison, then you should take additional damage each *turn*. What you should not be doing is taking multiple ticks of damage for every step you take across these surface in the same turn.

The most ridiculous example of this is the Man at Arm's skill "Battering Ram". Early in the game I tried to use it to quickly cross a flaming surface and strike an opponent on the other side. I realized I would catch fire and take damage. I did not realize I would be spammed with a dozen strikes of damage for every step I took as I shot like a comet through it. I arrived at the other side of the fire field dead, as a pile of ash.

However, even normal walking movements are just as deadly. If the surface I'm standing on catches fire (or is poisoned), and I use my turn to move out of it, I take additional damage for seemingly every meter traveled. And by the end of my movement I'm either dead or nearly dead. Please fix this as it makes these elemental surfaces far more deadly than they should be.

If you shot like a comet you'd arrive as a puddle of water, though.

But seriously, I agree.

Hah, true, true.

How can anyone agree to what OP is saying. It's silly.

- Standing in a cloud of toxic gas = breathing it in and suffering from it
- Stepping out of the cloud = still taking damage from it's toxic effects, but at least you aren't breathing it in more, causing further damage

- Standing on a hot surface = it ignites your clothes and you're burning, but you're also standing on the hot surface, which is painful as well
- Stepping off of the hot surface = You're still burning, but at least you aren't standing on a hot surface anymore

Seriously, imagine a room filled with gas, when you leave it, you'll still be hurt by the gas, but it wouldn't be as bad as staying inside. Imagine being a piece of food in a frying pan, when you are taken out of the frying pan, you're still hot, but at least you're not being heated up even more by the frying pan.
Why is this not intuitive for you?

Actually... it would be more like a cloud of vapor, spreading from the impact area along with various debris.

Im not sure about the issue though, since it was reduced quite a lot from the previous effects these surfaces had in the beta.

Also, ive noticed that if you walk slowly, step by step - you get much less damage then if you accidentally try to run.

Which seems reasonable to me. After all if you are standing in fire and make a step - you will get burned more, because you just stepped onto a burning surface again. Similar with poison-acid kind of a surface.

Kriss, before criticizing me like that, at least make sure you're understanding what you're responding to. Maybe I should be asking why the original post is not intuitive for you, because you seemed to have missed my point entirely. I will, however, make an effort to break it down again.

The problem is not that you continue to take additional poison damage from standing in a poison cloud for additional turns. For example, if you stand in a poison cloud for 3 turns before the cloud dissipates, I fully expect you to take poison damage 3 times - once for each turn, and then probably additional damage for a few turns after that as the poison debuff on your character wears off. Nobody is suggesting anything is wrong with that.

The part I have a problem with is when you take poison damage *ten times in a single turn* because you walked through a poison cloud rather than remaining perfectly still in it, as if each step you're taking (probably in an effort to move out of the cloud) should poison you all over again. Poisoning you for the amount of time you spend in a cloud = perfectly reasonable. Poisoning you for the amount of steps you take through a cloud, however, makes no sense.

Fire has the same problem. For some reason in Divinity, you'll take less damage standing in a fire for 3 turns than you will if you attempt to take 4 steps out of the fire in 1 turn. That makes no sense.

Now, there are examples where the above behavior of movement versus time does make sense. For example, every step taken across a frozen surface should (and does) introduce a chance of being knocked down. Every step taken across an electrified surface should (and does) introduce a chance to be stunned. But fire and poison damage should occur over time, not over distance traveled. Sure, the chance to be poisoned or set "on fire" should occur with each step, but once you have the debuff you shouldn't be taking additional damage with each step - only with the passing of more time.

I agree with you here, Gryson. I don't think you should take additional damage within a turn for the steps you take in exiting an environmental hazzard.

agree, stupid and unbalanced decision for Lar.

What you're basically suggesting is that lifting your foot off a burning surface and setting it back down on the same burning surface should cause *more* damage than just leaving your foot glued to the burning surface and not moving it.

That makes no sense. Why should it cause more damage?

If a burning surface does 30 damage per turn:

1) Standing on it for 2 turns should cause 60 damage total.
2) Spending 2 turns walking 20 steps out of it should also cause 60 damage total. Instead, what's happening is you're taking 30x20+60 = good luck with that damage.

Well, in case of surfaces - not clouds - it kinda makes sense.
You walk over the surface -> the surface affects you and you extinguish it/soak it up.
The burning/poisoned status is only an additional DoT effect.
In a cloud however, that explanation wouldn't make sense.

Now balancing reasons are different again.
If you want a surface to be an obstacle that will hold the player in place for a while, it makes sense again, otherwise if you consider it too much it should be changed.

Yeah, it is kinda unrealistic, and silly. But this is a game. Maybe fire in Divinity world, is different from our world's fire, and burn you more if you walk in it, instead of standing still.

Tactically, this is fine. It makes surfaces more deadly, and forces you to think. I like it.

I disagree with that. In reality it removes an option. When an opponent ignites or poisons an area around (and including) your character there's a few options available. Running out of the impacted area should be one of those options, but instead it's the worst move you can make because it inflicts the most damage. Standing perfectly still inside the impacted area is actually a more desirable option, which tactically makes no sense.

This is not just a problem that impacts players. It also makes elemental surfaces far too useful against monsters. Setting an area ablaze around a monster will do far more damage than it should if the monster attempts to leave the area of effect.

Yeah, you can stay, in fire and smoke, and be useless. Or you can run, taking a lot of dmg. Or you can think about some way to remove damaging surface. Or use teleport to get out.

With your proposed change, there would be only one "desirable" option - run. And you could just ignore surfaces when trying to reach enemies. "Go around? Meh, I'd rather take 20 dmg goin through fire, who cares?"



Yeah, and this is problem with stupid AI, and enemies being weak and easy to beat in general. Not with surfaces. Overall, your suggestion just makes easy game even easier.

Not true in the slightest. Running does not become the only desirable option at that point, it just creates *an* option which previously didn't exist. If movement will trigger attacks of opportunity against you, or force you to move to a location that is far less useful, the better option may be to remain in place and deal with the dangerous surface in some other manner (using rain to extinguish a burning field, for example). You do not *have* to run, but removing yourself from the dangerous surface should at least be an option.

Environmental fields are not supposed to be the end-all be-all of this game. If a character wants to move through one at the cost of taking some damage, there is nothing wrong with that, and it's a tactical choice. The picture you paint is one where poison and flaming fields riddle the battleground with "no trespassing" zones. If anything that dumbs the gameplay down and makes elemental surfaces far too deadly and useful in a game that already focuses on the elements a little too heavily (compared to everything else in combat).

I think it is fine the way it is. Certainly not a "big problem" Just another way of possibly doing it, which as Shaki said, would take a lot of the danger away from cloud and terrain effects. Right now I try to avoid getting into fire or poison. If this got "fixed" I wouldn't care about status effects at all. If anything, smarter enemies might help, rather than an effect nerf, though I think the enemies are fairly smart already.

Well, I'm not sure why you wouldn't care about running through a damaging element, taking damage for every turn spent in it, and then additional damage each turn for the debuff it leaves on you (poison, burning, etc) even after you've left said area. It seems to me like that would be something very worthy of your concern. You don't need to stack the ridiculous behavior being criticized in this thread on top of all that.

Creating respect for an elemental surface by reapplying its damage with each step taken is both an unrealistic and poor approach to making the player concerned with the danger of elements.

And, yes, it is a "big problem" when death is the result of attempting to move *out* of a fire/poison field placed suddenly at your feet, and that the smarter choice is to just stand still like an oblivious fool.

Right now I stand still and cast rain or something rather than try to escape. That seems counter-intuitive.

What should be happening is they test to re-apply the status every turn that I am in a cloud or surface, but only proc the damage at the beginning of the turn. Thus if I stand in flames I risk burning indefinitely, but I won't die merely from trying to escape. I would even be okay with testing to apply the status again with each step (IE 20 steps through poison is 20 chances to get poisoned) which makes sense as well. Just once you are poisoned or burning you can't get more poisoned or burned.

It's magic! Woohoo!
But seriously, we have to distinguish between the poisoned and burning status effects (which do damage over time) and the direct poison or fire damage.
You can get the status effect only once, true, but you can get damage from the elemental surface multiple times.
If I burn you once with a torch you will get hurt by it, if I burn you again, you will be hurt again.

If you want to get super-realistic about it, let's look at the amount of time spent on/in the surface/cloud. We can't just use turns straight-up, because you can spend a portion of a turn within the area, and a portion of the turn out; we need fractional turns.

Let's say it's burning ground, and you have 10 AP for the turn. If you use all 10 of that AP on the burning ground, then you should take a full turn's worth of burning ground damage. The same is true if you spent 8 of your 10 AP then passed the 2; you were still in the burning ground for eight eighths of your turn.

Now if you left during the turn, let's say 5AP in and 5AP out, then you should take half that damage. Things get complicated if you spend 5AP in, 3AP out, and 2AP sent to the next turn; you should take 5/8 of a turn of damage, but as you're walking off you only naturally take the half-a-turn damage, so the game would need to add 1/8 when you pass the turn, even though you're off the burning ground already.

Or, instead of having a hyper-complicated, super-realistic system, we could make it so every AP you spend within the damaging area does damage to you. Doing damage on a per-step basis makes absolutely perfect sense. The only thing which doesn't make sense is why attacking or casting on burning ground doesn't hurt you.

TL;DR: Gyson is wrong.

The DoT effect is already assuming the burning. You're burning the same amount of time. Its like do you hold one torch to me for 60 seconds, or two torches for 30 seconds each. If you want to argue that actually being in the fire intensifies the effect, there should be a DoT effect that procs while in the cloud/ surface. Something like (1/max AP)*(AP used while in the cloud)*(damage modifier). That way not only does running have an additional DoT but casting spells, fighting, etc. Faster characters get out quicker, and those with higher CON will take less damage.

Currently its just not internally consistent no matter if you think being in the effect should do something in addition to the status effect.