(Don't) Give me that old time RPG combat

[Kyuu]

After rereading the editorial, I now agree that he doesn't seem to be asking for combat ala FO3 or the like. However, he does seem to be against turn-based combat. What he advocates is what he calls "phased" combat, which are systems that emulate turn-based combat using timers but without actual turns. Which, of course, is not turn-based combat. It's more like KotOR, Final Fantasy 7's "active turn-based" combat (but without the evil menus), or maybe even EQ-/WoW-clone combat that is real-time but with various cool-down timers.

As for Wizardry 8, never played it, but after watching a couple Youtube videos of it, I'd have to have someone explain to me what's so awesome about it. Looks like faux-turn-based (but really real-time with pause) in a first-person perspective. It also seems to be fairly menu heavy (I count "click on party member portrait, then pick options out of long lists which appear" as menus), which makes it a bit contradictory for the author to recommend.

 

[TorontoReign]

Duke failed because the game was developed for over 15 years by multiple developers. Not because it wasn't a good idea. It was just executed poorly. That style of game can still be done well without being horrible. Just like a old school RPG can be awesome without being mainstream.

There was no real design behind the game, with each new feature that their rivals demonstrated, Apogee decided to add it to their game, so they were always behind the competition. They should have stuck to a "simple" 3 year development cycle and just released the bloody thing, instead of blowing millions and millions on a never ending mess.

Watch and weep...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQjm0Z7UNgg&feature=sh_e_se&list=SL[/youtube]

Yeah I agree. 3DRealms deserved to die. Biggest screw up in gaming history...

 

[UniversalWolf]

By the definition I already operated under, Wasteland's WEGO *was* a phase-based system...

It seems to me each participant in a Wasteland battle has a definite "turn" rather than acting simultaneously with all the other actors in the battle. It's just that all orders are restricted to the beginning of the "combat round." This could be considered an "orders phase," I suppose. It's different from giving each player character orders at the beginning of his individual turn.

It's not like Combat Mission, though, where all participants in the battle act simultaneously after orders have been issued. If that makes any difference.

Personally I think RTwP and RT/TB hybrid are the two lowest forms of cRPG combat. For people who like them, there are plenty of other games to play so they don't have to contaminate Wasteland 2 with their unwelcome and ill-conceived ideas.

 

[RenegadeRoach]

I don't get it. you guys say it's all funded by old school gamers. when obsidian announced they were going to get involved it saved the whole project. so before go mouthing off about it only being funded for only old school gamers think about a perfect game for everyone and not thinking about yourselves and being so one-sided.

 

[Brother None]

obsidian announced they were going to get involved it saved the whole project.

Reality check. It was already fully funded well before Obsidian was announced.

I don't see your point anyway. Obsidian's involvement isn't going to change anything about this being old school focused.

 

[DemonNick]

If you don't know any of the games he's talking about I can see how you might jump to conclusions but if you don't know the games that he's talking about you're probably not the kind of person who has an opinion about RPG mechanics.

Hah. A decent attempt at sniping, but no, I know what he's talking about, and I still got a headache trying to decipher that excuse of a writeup. And while I know he's not against TB (as, y'know, the newsposts explicitly says), he still seems to believe a lot of it stems from technical limitations, and has similar ill-formed if not idiotic opinions on how and why TB systems work.

Actually if you read the article he says that the emphasis on combat over other mechanics arose because of technical limitations. He says that the old RPGs were primarily about combat with some exploration for multiple reasons and that technical limitations were one of them. He doesn't even say they were the primary reason. He just (correctly) points out that genuine TB combat became less common as technology advanced. I think that it's kind of silly to deny that technical limitations played a role in giving us the kind of combat we got in those games.

Also it's not written in difficult or muddled language at all. It's well organized, chronological, and doesn't have an excess of adjectives or anything like that. So if you could tell me what, specifically, is wrong with the style that'd be cool.

e: Also I wasn't really sniping at you, more at the other posters ITT.

 

[Brother None]

Actually if you read the article he says that the emphasis on combat over other mechanics arose because of technical limitations.

Which isn't true.

He just (correctly) points out that genuine TB combat became less common as technology advanced.

Which means the two factors are directly related, does it? Because his all article is predicated on that assumption, and it's simply a false one.

Also it's not written in difficult or muddled language at all. It's well organized, chronological, and doesn't have an excess of adjectives or anything like that.

It isn't structured as an argument. It jumps from point to point, doesn't really back up any claims that are presented, then handwaves away the fact that Fallout does in fact fit into these "technically constrained" types of combat, and then offers a conclusion that was not built up by the article at all.

 

[Kyuu]

I don't get it. you guys say it's all funded by old school gamers. when obsidian announced they were going to get involved it saved the whole project. so before go mouthing off about it only being funded for only old school gamers think about a perfect game for everyone and not thinking about yourselves and being so one-sided.

Besides the ways in which your post is flat-out wrong as pointed out by BN, I also have to add: the purpose of the project is outlined quite clearly on Wasteland 2's kickstarter page. The purpose is for Brian Fargo to build the kind of Wasteland 2 he wants to build: an "old-school" sandbox RPG. If people are funding it thinking it's going to be something else, then they're 100% missing the point, are funding it for the wrong reasons, and are not going to get what they want. I'm quite glad for them to keep their money in the project based on their ignorance/delusions, though.

 

[danielje]

I still think that many people have mistook the original article for some sort of assault on old games. I don't think he intended the article to have that type of sentiment. He simply seemed to be having some sort of internal conflict agonizing over the tough decisions Brian Fargo must be making when deciding the final design of the game.

For instance I don't believe we will see a Menu-Driven Combat system that was used for Wasteland 1. It would be hard to imagine doing a system like this unless you had a well implemented graphical exploration stage to compliment it. And even then it'd be hard to imagine them deciding on a system like that.

I believe the graphical grid based systems that Fallout 1/2 use are much more likely to be making a return in Wasteland 2.

 

[Crni Vuk]

yeah but if that is true then it is still bad wording. Because there is what so ever no connection between design and technology here. TB combat or anything similar works despite any technological evolution. How people can think anything else is something that will never stop to amaze me. I mean did people stoped to ride horses because of cars? Or is the motorbike replacing the bicycle? People have to realize that everything has a role. And what we see today with popular games is that they chose a "system" to fit everything. Shooter-gameplay. Either third person of first person. That not every game or formula can be adapted to it was proven nicely by Fallout 3.

 

[Bengt]

Oh my.

Admittedly, I only read the excerpt on the NMA first page before posting, and honestly, that's how I read it. When the headline reads "Don't give me that old time RPG combat", I bet most of us jumped to some erroneous conclusions.

Especially after just having played through the AoD demo/beta and loving every second of it.

No doubt inXile has some thinking ahead of them (and hopefully behind them as well) on mechanics. Not just combat mechanincs mind you, every aspect of the old game needs an update, I don't think anyone will argue against that. I mean, if Wasteland was perfect, why make a sequel at all?

 

[Per]

think about a perfect game for everyone

A good way to come up with crap for everyone.

I think that it's kind of silly to deny that technical limitations played a role in giving us the kind of combat we got in those games.

The statement "given a lack of technical limitations, X could have been done differently" works for any X. This is fairly uninteresting given the fact that the combat systems of games like Wasteland and Fallout were specifically and deliberately made to model pen and paper RPG systems.

Not just combat mechanincs mind you, every aspect of the old game needs an update, I don't think anyone will argue against that.

"Update" always comes to mean all sorts of funny things in these cases.

 

[Crni Vuk]

I am sure they would have made Doom a top down turn based RPG. But technical limitations forced them to do a first person corridor shooter. Go figure! Uh yeah! Reverse logic!

 

[tennishero]

final fantasy 12 combat

problem solved

japan games companies cant write a good story to save their lives

(the magnificent short stories in lost odyssey were written by a REAL writer and it shows)

but damn the japanese cant make a good TB combat engine

 

[Makagulfazel]

Uhmmm.. No thanks. While I wouldn't mind the gambit system's "Do 'x' when 'y'" triggers if Wasteland 2 were real-time(doubt it), the combat in FF12 is mind-numbingly easy. Run into group of monsters, let the gambit system take care of the rest. It didn't call for any tactics what-so-ever, so I wouldn't use it as an example of a good combat system.

 

[tennishero]

it did take tactics

it had dumbed down difficulty but the engine showed the potential

a turn based game with near real time excitment without sacrificing strategy

some of the side quest hunts required alot of preparation and strategy adjustments

the game didnt play itself- though the haters love to claim it did

 

[Crni Vuk]

turn based combat is excitment for me. No clue what you mean.

 

[Kyuu]

I love the Final Fantasy series myself, but FF12 easily has the worst combat of any of them. Game overall was pretty eh... it's one of the very few FFs I haven't been able to play much because it just isn't interesting.

FFX is my favorite combat system of the FFs... and it's a true turn-based sysem, oddly enough.