Video Games - Storage Space Blues

[Maia]

15 hours ago, IlyaP said:

On the other hand, it also makes combat take longer .

The solution to this is not to include trash mobs and/or have an automatic resolution option. Dragonfall and Hong Kong aren't particularly long games either. I think that missions where you have to accomplish objectives within a given number of turns and get out or have to survive for ditto offer nice tension  and challenge. Personally, I came to really enjoy turn-based combat in games with a party, because it potentially  allows for much better tactical gameplay. I have been recently re-playing Final Fantasy Tactics War of the Lions on my Ipad and thinking that I'd love to play a proper RPG with exploration and dialogue choices, but with similar combat gameplay.

 

13 hours ago, Werthead said:

Baldur's Gate 3 being turn-based is extremely annoying given that being RTWP was the killer app of the first two games. If you want to make a turn-based spin-off, sure, make a turn-based spin-off, just don't call it Baldur's Gate 3 (not to mention that the game won't be furthering the story of BG1-2 in any real way, from the look of it).

My understanding is that DnD magic, which is what made BG's combat shine, was very much nerfed and simplified in favor of positioning, elevation and various actions that couldn't work  in RTwP. As to the story, well, what is there left to tell? Honestly, as long as turn-based combat is actually good, they finally implement verticality in some way and everything else is up to scratch, I'd be for it.  Wouldn't be the first time when a  game title only has a very tenious connection to it's content either.

[Fez]

Tabletop DnD is turn-based, it only makes sense to me that DnD video games would be too. Just because they weren't 20 years ago is no reason to keep down that path.

But I'm biased, I despise RTWP gameplay.

The trick is, you shouldn't just make a game try to do both; since that ends up causing turn-based to take forever. There should be fewer, but far more detailed and complex, fights. Divinity Original Sin 2 showed the way, every single combat encounter in the game is unique.

[Werthead]

3 hours ago, Fez said:

Tabletop DnD is turn-based, it only makes sense to me that DnD video games would be too. Just because they weren't 20 years ago is no reason to keep down that path.

But I'm biased, I despise RTWP gameplay.

The trick is, you shouldn't just make a game try to do both; since that ends up causing turn-based to take forever. There should be fewer, but far more detailed and complex, fights. Divinity Original Sin 2 showed the way, every single combat encounter in the game is unique.

Tabletop DnD uses a human DM who can't process 5 different things simultaneously, so yes, it is turn-based as a limitation of the medium. A video game is not subject to the same limitations.

I do like turn-based games but you do have to find a way of making them really well-designed and work well, and I think RTWP can be the same thing: BG1+2 and Icewind Dale 1+2 did that really well, Planescape: Torment was meh (but combat was not a focus of the gameplay) and a lot of the games since that tried to do it suffered from poor implementation.

Turn-based I think does have its own inherent problems, such as stacking effects and synergies sometimes getting completely broken and allowing you to kill 15 people in a row without them being able to do anything, which is cool but highly illogical.

[Fez]

26 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Tabletop DnD uses a human DM who can't process 5 different things simultaneously, so yes, it is turn-based as a limitation of the medium. A video game is not subject to the same limitations.

I do like turn-based games but you do have to find a way of making them really well-designed and work well, and I think RTWP can be the same thing: BG1+2 and Icewind Dale 1+2 did that really well, Planescape: Torment was meh (but combat was not a focus of the gameplay) and a lot of the games since that tried to do it suffered from poor implementation.

Turn-based I think does have its own inherent problems, such as stacking effects and synergies sometimes getting completely broken and allowing you to kill 15 people in a row without them being able to do anything, which is cool but highly illogical.

I think the old Infinity Engine games managed to somewhat overcome the limitations of RTWP, but only barely. Concepts like positioning and persistent area-of-effect spells, which can be crucial in the tabletop, are basically nonexistent because anyone can move at anytime. 

Turn-based can certainly suffering from poor design issues as well. But I think at it's core its simply a better system for tactical gameplay

[Werthead]

35 minutes ago, Fez said:

I think the old Infinity Engine games managed to somewhat overcome the limitations of RTWP, but only barely. Concepts like positioning and persistent area-of-effect spells, which can be crucial in the tabletop, are basically nonexistent because anyone can move at anytime. 

The old IE games used a turn-based mechanism under the real-time with pause hood, though, so area of effect spells were extremely effective (especially that bloody vine spell, but also poison clouds and fireball). You just had to use them the second the next round ticked over to maximise their efficiency.

[Fez]

3 hours ago, Werthead said:

The old IE games used a turn-based mechanism under the real-time with pause hood, though, so area of effect spells were extremely effective (especially that bloody vine spell, but also poison clouds and fireball). You just had to use them the second the next round ticked over to maximise their efficiency.

But if you're going to need to auto-pause at the start of every round, which I did in my replay of BG1 and 2 last summer, you're just running a more awkward turn-based game at that point.

[Werthead]

Just now, Fez said:

But if you're going to need to auto-pause at the start of every round, which I did in my replay of BG1 and 2 last summer, you're just running a more awkward turn-based game at that point.

That's the point, you don't. Against hardy enemies, sure, but against standard mobs you don't need to bother.

[Fez]

6 minutes ago, Werthead said:

That's the point, you don't. Against hardy enemies, sure, but against standard mobs you don't need to bother.

I did, especially in BG2 where I was a high enough level to want to be casting spells almost every round and wanted to avoid friendly fire and get the most bang for my buck.

Also because a party of 6 is large enough to make micromanaging troubling, and I wanted to avoid having someone chase a fleeing enemy halfway across the map and start aggroing new enemies.

It all feels terrible to me.

[Werthead]

5 minutes ago, Fez said:

I did, especially in BG2 where I was a high enough level to want to be casting spells almost every round and wanted to avoid friendly fire and get the most bang for my buck.

Also because a party of 6 is large enough to make micromanaging troubling, and I wanted to avoid having someone chase a fleeing enemy halfway across the map and start aggroing new enemies.

It all feels terrible to me.

I think the damage output rising scale should mostly make that not a problem (it's better in BG2 than BG1), along with the old standby of giving everybody missile weapons all the time. It was never a huge problem for me.

Expeditions Rome is giving a good account of how unbalanced turn-based can be. Now I've cracked some of the higher skill tiers, I've got some guys who can reliably kill one person a round (attack+pilum), usually triggering a second attack on a fresh unit, which my other units can then bring down in a sort of cascade of special abilities and tactical weapons piling on top of one another. As long as you make sure you keep up your weapons upgrades (whilst not sacrificing great abilities on a weapon for one that does slightly more damage but is less versatile), it feels like the game has effectively become too easy (especially once I found out the old "leave Lucius Vorenus in the bath for the entire game for infinite morale trick").

[polishgenius]

Just to go back briefly to our discussion of Square Enix and names, they just yesterday announced another new strategy-RPG franchise, coming later in the year. It's name? The DioField Chronicle.
 

No word yet if Toyoma Asano was involved in naming this one though.

[Maia]

On 3/11/2022 at 6:52 PM, Werthead said:

Tabletop DnD uses a human DM who can't process 5 different things simultaneously, so yes, it is turn-based as a limitation of the medium. A video game is not subject to the same limitations.

A video game is subject to other limitations where party combat is concerned. RT and RTwP make use of cover, verticality, positioning, character combat and movement abilities that are not magic or made to function similar to magic, party coordination, etc. iffy or impossible. I love the IE games too, but they remain pretty much the unmatched pinnacle of what can be done with it. And it is not for nothing that fighter-adjacent characters in them were the most boring to play.

 

On 3/11/2022 at 8:00 PM, Werthead said:

The old IE games used a turn-based mechanism under the real-time with pause hood, though, so area of effect spells were extremely effective (especially that bloody vine spell, but also poison clouds and fireball). You just had to use them the second the next round ticked over to maximise their efficiency.

I found any attempt to use AoE spells without switching to TB very frustrating. And even with TB gauging where they would land took some getting used to.

20 hours ago, Werthead said:

That's the point, you don't. Against hardy enemies, sure, but against standard mobs you don't need to bother.

That's the crux of the matter, though - if standard mobs are boring, either don't include them or provide quick automatic fight resolution option. BG2 was so much more enjoyable than the first one because it heavily cut down on them, but it could have gone even further.

As to overpowered combos, nobody has to implement them either. Nor is RTwP immune from them - IIRC in BG1 there were less than a dozen encounters that couldn't be solved by equipping everybody with missile weapons and pointing them all at one enemy at a time, even at the hardest difficulty. 

[IlyaP]

7 hours ago, Maia said:

And it is not for nothing that fighter-adjacent characters in them were the most boring to play.

This is entirely dependent on one's play style. I go in for fighters and paladins and don't bother with long-distance attacks or even AoE spells. I go in for the crunchy attack hard approach. And being able to constantly pause to assess a given situation and character/NPC location and redirect my players at a time of my choice (rather than the game's - as is the case with turn-based) is part of the appeal. I, as the player, get to control when and where and even *if* the game gets paused. 

But as always with art, de gustibus non est disputandum. 

[briantw]

For anyone with HBO, Our Flag Means Death is probably the closest thing we'll ever get to a Monkey Island series, complete with Rhys Darby in the Guybrush Threepwood role.  And that's goddamn perfect.

[Derfel Cadarn]

13 hours ago, briantw said:

For anyone with HBO, Our Flag Means Death is probably the closest thing we'll ever get to a Monkey Island series, complete with Rhys Darby in the Guybrush Threepwood role.  And that's goddamn perfect.

There’s a three-headed monkey?

[IlyaP]

There is a wonderfully strange TC of Half-Life 2 called (honestly - and very weirdly*)...G-String. Came to learn about it via PC Gamer. It's a little weird on the eyes in the opening level, but the soundtrack is quite excellent, and some of the design decisions here are, if nothing else, incredibly creative. And it was a 20 year passion project, which is remarkable unto itself.

In the meantime, am taking a break from my replay of Cyberpunk 2077 [now with the 1.5 patch]. (Side note: the metro mod *is* awesome, if slightly buggy - if you turn the camera just the right way, it reveals V on a...bicycle!) Decided to try and finish Thief II: The Metal Age before Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness exits Early Access. (Supposedly today, though I've seen no changes on Steam. So maybe tomorrow morning east coast Australian time?)

*If anyone can explain what the hell is up with the strange name, I would love to learn more.

[Fez]

A few games came out today/yesterday that I'm interested in, but I really want to finish Elden Ring before jumping into anything else. Also, each of them seems like it could a few patches first. So win-win if ER keep dragging out and I don't buy any of them for a while longer.

Black Geyser- A new CRPG, though RTWP only I believe. Still, it looks interesting enough. Sounds like there's a couple nasty bugs that they promised to patch today (like all the text swapping from English to another language). My bigger concern, though perhaps unfounded, is that the game was only in early access for a very short period of time and doesn't have a ton of reviews. I worry that the game isn't really finished but they decided it was a lost cause so they just slapped a "done" label on it to move on to other things. Guess I'll see what reviews say in a few more days.

Persona 4 Arena Ultimax- A sequel/spin-off fighting game to Persona 4. It's a port of an old game, which was supposed to be really good. I absolutely want to play it, but it sounds like the port (at least on PC; it's also out on PS5 and Switch) is a pretty bad one. I don't mind lazy, I feel like a lot of ports of old Japanese games don't do much on the upgrade front. But visual and audio bugs are not something I want to deal with. Hopefully a couple patches will come out.

ANNO: Mutationem- Has nothing to do with the 'Anno' series. It's a pixel art cyberpunk game. Cool visual design (maybe a bit overly horny, but the game is also on PS5, so nothing NSFW) and is apparently a mix of 2.5D/3D exploration/narrative sections and 2D platforming/combat section. Reviews are generally favorable, but sounds like the combat feels a bit clunky until you start getting upgrades (though I feel like that's been a complaint in some recent AAA games too, like Dying LIght 2; that parts of the core combat were ripped out to become unlockable upgrades for the sake of "progression").

[RumHam]

I haven't played Core Keeper yet but it just jumped to the top of my list. Just need to finish Elden Ring.

 

 

 

[Werthead]

I on Chapter 3 of Expeditions Rome and good lord this game just keeps going. 50 hours and I think I'm at least 10 hours from wrapping up the chapter (I believe there's a Chapter 4, but it's relatively short compared to the first three).

It's great to get such a lot of content, but the game doesn't change things up enough to make it really worth the immense length. At ~40 hours it'd have been perfect, tight and well-paced.

[IlyaP]

2 hours ago, Fez said:

Black Geyser- A new CRPG, though RTWP only I believe. Still, it looks interesting enough. Sounds like there's a couple nasty bugs that they promised to patch today (like all the text swapping from English to another language). My bigger concern, though perhaps unfounded, is that the game was only in early access for a very short period of time and doesn't have a ton of reviews. I worry that the game isn't really finished but they decided it was a lost cause so they just slapped a "done" label on it to move on to other things. Guess I'll see what reviews say in a few more days.

I've been following this one since it was announced. It is indeed a RTwP game, in the spirit of Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale et al.

It was in Early Access for a bit over a year now (I bought it the day it became available), and finally went gold last night (I've woken up to a 4.5 gig update that's pushed the game into Full Release).

[Corvinus85]

6 hours ago, Werthead said:

I on Chapter 3 of Expeditions Rome and good lord this game just keeps going. 50 hours and I think I'm at least 10 hours from wrapping up the chapter (I believe there's a Chapter 4, but it's relatively short compared to the first three).

It's great to get such a lot of content, but the game doesn't change things up enough to make it really worth the immense length. At ~40 hours it'd have been perfect, tight and well-paced.

From a purely gameplay perspective, I agree. But it does have a good story, well-worth the hours. It took me about 74 hrs.