Silencer said:
Please don't double-post, Eternal Dragon.
Will you
please tell me where these double-posts are occurring. An admin told me that in another thread but I have not seen any duplicate posts of mine anywhere, unless they are being deleted before I check back on the boards.
Or is this definition of "double post" mean put all of your responses in one session in a single message instead of multiple consecutive ones? Perhaps that's it, but that's not the meaning of double post that I'm familiar with.
Silencer said:
An iso view was just essential to the style of combat and movement that Fallout had. I've played both FPP and TPP view RPGs and it is my observation that and iso view works much better if any actual tactical planning is involved in combat - FPP combat tends to become a sort of a power-level showdown quickly.
It is my observation that a great number of turn-based RPGs essentially become a power-level showdown. This is more the case in turn-based games where you don't have any real representation of the battlefield: Bard's Tale, Wizardry, Might & Magic, Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, and the like.
I would make the argument that many turn-based RPGs, whether isometric or not, do not involve any meaningful tactical planning beyond "which enemy do I attack" and "when do I use my healing item?"
Very few games allow you to make use of the environment during battle, at best allowing you to set choke points at doors or corridors. Sometimes you can "take cover" behind an obstacle on your turn, only to have an enemy walk around the side on his turn. I would love it if more games really let you use the environment to a tactical advantage in a battle, but for many games it's essentially just a painted background with "walkable" and "nonwalkable" areas.
If you are have direct control over each member of your group, as in the old AD&D "Gold Box" Games, Realms of Arkania, Temple of Elemental Evil, Baldur's Gate and the other Infinity Engine games, or the "strategy RPG" genre games on the consoles, then there is a greater opportunity for some tactical thinking. If you only have control over your primary character and your companions are AI controlled, as in Fallout, Arcanum, or Ultima VII, then a lot of that tactical potential goes out the window because the AI is so stupid.
Silencer said:
RoA was a curiosity in that matter, having FPP fro movement (immersion anyone), but iso for combat since it just works better.
Pool of Radiance and the other "Gold Box" AD&D games did that too, as did the dungeons in older Ultima titles. I don't really care for that setup myself, as I find the abrupt switching between "movement/exploration" and "combat" modes and environments rather disjointed. Whether it stays real-time or switches to turn-based mode, I much prefer the game to stay in a consistent map and scale.
Silencer said:
Also, FPP view sucks ass when it's supposed to represent a party of characters
That it does -- and I have never advocated otherwise. But in Fallout you're not really playing a party of characters; you're playing a single character and you have AI-controlled companions following you. Other than speaking to them and giving them general combat "strategies," you have no control over them whatsoever.
On another thread, there were complaints about the idea that a very high Perception score would let you "see" through a door and be aware of an enemy on the other side. Yet nobody complains when the exact same thing happens in an overhead view of combat; it is simply expected. You see opponents on the other side of walls and doors all of the time, and you also have eyes in the back and sides of your head to give you an omniscient perspective of the battlefield.
Silencer said:
- although some games like Ishar allowed you arrange the setup of your party within a square, it was something I always found lacking in terms of actual effect the setup had on the fight. Iso takes care of that.
I haven't played it, but it sounds very much like the way that Dungeon Master handled the party. That was a real-time combat that I hated, because it was only real-time for the computer. You had to fumble around clicking on every character to make sure they did something while the monsters were surrounding you and attacking simultaneously. The Eye of the Beholder games did that sort of thing as well, and it was just as stupid there too.
Vault 69er said:
However, he's implying that his opinion overrides the developer's intent, which is ludicrous.
You can think whatever you want about Fallout. If you want to, you can think the only essential part of Fallout is Dogmeat.
That won't change what the original developers intended the essential parts to be, does it?
I am not saying that my opinion overrides the developer's intent. But what I think is essential to the experience may not match -- or may even oppose -- the developer's intent.
I find it amusing how it's ludicrous for "my opinion to override the developer's intent" in this instance, but the fans' opinions on what is essential apparently mean everything when it comes to new Star Wars films, Lord of the Rings: books vs films, and everything else that gets geeky fans' panties in a knot.
Sander said:
You could also simply say "I disagree" and not sound like Comic Book Guy.
Sander said:
If you're going to look at Fallout's core design (specifically what it was meant to be), turn-based combat was very obviously part of it. Hence losing that, means you lose part of Fallout's essential design.
I totally agree that you lose part of the essential design of the original game Fallout. What I don't agree with is that specific design decision being essential to what made Fallout unique, or to the "spirit" of the game, if you will. It was a part of the core design, but I see it as a mostly cosmetic. Obviously, I'm in the minority here on that issue.
Sander said:
The overhead view gives you a tactical view of the battlefield. This is just as important with one as with 6 people in a party.
But is it appropriate for a game where you only control a single entity? The original Fallout games didn't even hide the contents of rooms that were completely closed-off to you once you were inside. If you are a god or disembodied commander issuing orders to your units, having that bird's eye view makes sense; when you're supposed to be the character that you are controlling, it seems rather detached.
Sander said:
False dichotomy. Combat is most certainly part of the P&P experience, and P&P has almost always been turn-based.
Of course combat is part of the P&P experience. I certainly wouldn't call it one of the defining features of the experience, but other players will certainly have different views on that.
The turn-based nature of P&P combat is less a defining aspect than it is a necessary one. When you have six players sitting around the table, plus a DM, there really isn't any other way to sequence combat actions; if everyone is yelling what they do in "real-time" it would quickly become utter chaos and only the loudest players would actually be heard. Unless you're into LARPing, turns are really the only practical way of sequencing and revolving actions.
Sander said:
You love that phrase. Saying it repeatedly doesn't make it true.
Sander said:
Fallout consisted of the classic RPG design. This includes dialogue, yes, but *also* combat.
It wasn't the combat system that made Fallout so different from other RPGs, which is not to say that combat is not important.
I would argue that Fallout did not consist of a classic RPG design, as if it did it would have been mainly an exercise in stat-grinding and combat, as the majority of "classic" RPGs were. Fallout's use of dialogue where choices were driven by your character development (and not just quest flags turned off and on) and giving you meaningful decisions to make that actually had far-reaching consequences were very novel and innovative at the time. Ultima games had a lot of depth and there were consequences for acting "evil" but you would also screw any chance of completing the game in short order. Arena and Daggerfall gave you a lot of freedom, but very little in the way of meaningful consequences. The majority of RPGs from the 80s and 90s were essentially combat simulators, later with a linear story and/or cinematics tacked on.
The design of Fallout definitely resembled the design of a P&P RPG adventure far more than electronic RPGs before it, although a lot of P&P groups seem to play in a style that would make Diablo jealous. But the combat aspect had been done well for almost twenty years at that point; it was the other aspects that elevated Fallout above its contemporaries.
Sander said:
The point of having a turn-based combat structure is largely one of player skill vs. character skill, ease of use and the ability to have a tactical system where you actually, *gasp*, think about your actions.
But if your character has a low Intelligence score, then you shouldn't really have the option of *gasp* thinking about your actions in combat, since this is about player skill vs. character skill. Nor should you be able to solve any complex puzzles in the game world. Nobody ever argues for it to work the opposite way like this (and for good reason, as it would be very unsatisfying).
Sander said:
That's neat, but not the point. Again, why are you harping that Fallout and RPGs *only* consist of story and dialogue?
I never said that RPGs *only* consist of story and dialogue, so please don't put words in my mouth. I think those games that did were called "graphic adventures" and generally made by Sierra and LucasArts.
However, those aspects are what differentiate Fallout from your standard Diablo-ish or Final Fantasy Tactics-ish hackfests.
