Koki on 17/12/2008 at 06:54
Quote Posted by entertainer
Koki loves RPG Codex.
hurrr durrr more.
Anyway the point was, it very rarely happens for a game to be accepted by the majority of the Codex. In whole 2008 I'm pretty sure it was only MotB and SoZ.
twisty on 17/12/2008 at 08:52
Quote Posted by Chuck
Give me a turn-based grid. If Fallout 1-3 did it (sans grid, maybe we don't need a grid) so could all of the Bioware titles. Wouldn't Baldur's Gate be awesome with turn-based combat?
Funny that. I had a very similar feeling after going back and replaying BG2 after completing Temple of Elemental Evil, which had the best turn-based gameplay for any RPG that I have yet tried.
Koki on 17/12/2008 at 09:03
Quote Posted by Chuck
Wouldn't Baldur's Gate be awesome with turn-based combat?
I can't imagine any situation where turn-based would be superior to real time with pause.
Malf on 17/12/2008 at 09:22
It's a great expansion, that's for sure.
The overland map and the focus on lots of small "adventures", as opposed to slogging through endless lengthy dungeon crawls gives it a very old school feeling, in a very good way. I think D&D as a system really shines in this kind of scenario, instead of focussing on massively epic.
The bad side is that it's quite buggy, including interface glitches and crashes to desktop, and the NWN combat system is still less than inspirational.
Combat devolves into barely controlled chaos as the real-time-with-pause system struggles to cope with multiple characters. The AI half the time gets in the way and is clunky, and if you turn the AI off, you will always forget one or more of your six characters when issuing direct orders between pauses.
It really does feel like a turn-based game forced into real-time, and not comfortable at all.
If they would just bite the bullet and implement proper turn-based, a la ToEE, these games would shine. Every encounter would become a lot more exciting, and character development, such as feat and skill choices would become a lot more meaningful.
As it stands at the moment, it all feels like barely-controlled chaos where combat pretty much auto-resolves, and you're left with the rather tedious job of healing everyone up post-combat.
But don't take all that as a reason not to buy the game; it's the most fun I've had with a NWN game, and certain things really make it shine, such as the dialogue system and the trading between towns.
Edit: Oh, and it could really do with a marching order. The amount of times my magic users end up on the front line is rather depressing.
steo on 17/12/2008 at 09:53
Quote Posted by Malf
Combat devolves into barely controlled chaos as the real-time-with-pause system struggles to cope with multiple characters... character development, such as feat and skill choices would become a lot more meaningful [with turn-based combat].
Come on, this isn't diablo, the game is still completely turn based, there's just no clear division between turns to give the illusion that it's real-time. So what if your fighter will keep hitting the same guy after the end of the round without you telling him to do it again, you can pause the game any time you want to change orders anyway so the only real difference is that you can tell your wizard to run away after he's lost an arm to the first of three attacks from a fighter instead of him standing there until he's been carved to pieces.
Malf on 17/12/2008 at 11:00
The point is steo, it's a turn-based game kludged into a real-time model, and it would be a lot more graceful if they just stuck with proper turn-based.
steo on 17/12/2008 at 20:33
Out of interest, what did you play first, Fallout or Baldur's Gate?
Blasphemy I know, but I discovered Fallout through Fallout Tactics which I played with the default continuous turn based combat. Having played BG and IWD beforehand, this didn't strike me as a ridiculous abhorring of the classic Fallout system until after I'd played the first two games, for which the turn-based combat took a bit of getting used to. Of course now I play tactics in turn-based mode because the action point combat model really doesn't translate well to CTB. I don't however, wish I could play NWN or the infinity engine games in turn based and while I can see the attraction of issuing orders to each of your six party members on a round by round basis, I think the continuous system in D&D games works very well.
At no point can I see how character development would be any different if the games were turn-based, since as far as combat mechanics and number crunching goes, they still are. This was not so in FOT, which is probably why the CTB system was such a failure.
Malf on 17/12/2008 at 23:43
I played Fallout way before Baldur's Gate; I was a Mac owner for both games.
Fallout's release was a simultaneous PC/Mac release whereas Baldur's Gate came out a lot later on the Mac than on the PC.
Even more importantly, before either, I was a hardcore P&P RPGer, where everything was turn-based.
Original D&D (When there was D&D and Advanced D&D), Warhammer Fantasy Battle, Warhammer 40k first edition, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Living Steel, Cyberpunk, Shadowrun.
So when people try to turn a turn-based game into a real-time game, I'm qualified to know that they're fucking it up.
D&D always plays better as a turn-based game.
That's why Temple of Elemental Evil enthusiasts are so, well, enthusiastic about the title.
steo on 18/12/2008 at 00:28
I too played P&P Dungeons and Dragons (both second and third editions) and a fair bit of warhammer back in the day but I still don't see CTB combat as a fuck up. One big advantage is that it's a fair bit quicker which makes easy, simple fights less tedious while you can still pause for the big complex fights.
It comes down to a matter of preference but I think you're being overly harsh by calling CTB a fuck up which ruins character development.
Matthew on 18/12/2008 at 09:14
I have to agree with steo on this one. (For the record, I'm also an original D&D and Rogue Trader-era 40K player.)
