Best combatfag game for build tinkering?

[pakoito]

I was wondering, which game that's aged decently is the best to run combat-centric runs in which your party builds and approaches to combat are the most varied. Something like drafting your own skill deck and parting to combat. ToEE, any of the Infinity Engine ones, some of the TCancer usual suspects, any classic TB blobber, RLs like ToME or just Original Sin?

 

[Damned Registrations]

Hmmm... thats... difficult.

In particular because the phrasing implies things like the time it takes to run a new build would be relevant, so games that only differentiate between parties towards the end would be penalized. I'd say that rules out and low level DnD stuff at least, where for the first few hours your strategy is probably 'throw rocks and shit' because nobody has any fucking abilities.

I suppose it's limited to turn based as well?

ToME's variations are actually fairly superficial, since it's mostly shuffling around relevant stats and ranges rather than unique archetypes. Whether you're a wizard or necromancer or psion, you're going to run around zapping guys with laser beams a lot, and putting up some sort of defensive shield.

I'd say Incursion (a roguelike) has a fair shot actually. It's based on low level DnD, but you start with additional feats and such powerful racial bonuses/equipment to such an extent it's more like starting at level 4-5. And the first few levels come very quickly, and there's a lot of loot. So you end up with a lot of variation in each game pretty quickly.

Labyrinth of Touhou (and 2) derserves a mention as well I'd say. The long term strategy of party building isn't terribly relevant because you can always swap members and equipment around, but the interaction between party members and the importance of distributing your resources amongst them is very important, and the cast is incredibly varied too. Not the kind of game you do multiple playthroughs of, but the combat won't get stale because you're constantly changing how you approach things (or at least you should, unless you manage to find something really optimal and brute force your way through, but even that won't last forever.)

The above mentioned games also have some solid difficulty to them, which I think is necessary to make variations in combat relevant.

Edit: Master of Magic is quite solid as well, but I don't feel like writing more. I'm sure some other oldfag can do it some justice.

 

[Lilura]

Good build variety for combat would come from D&D3.x games, stuff like Icewind Dale 2 (tactics mod), Temple of Elemental Evil (Co8 for +lvlcap) and Storm of Zehir.

My choice is Storm of Zehir + TonyK's AI + max party override for building several characters to clvl30 under the D&D3.5 system.

Dragon Age: Origins deserves a mention, especially modded with RAVage, Advanced Tactics, Smarter AI, Faster Combat/Runspeed, conditional tactical framework extender and GT Core.

 

[Lhynn]

My choice is Storm of Zehir + TonyK's AI + max party override for building several characters to clvl30 under the D&D3.5 system.

yeah and add this to have even more variety.


On the MMO side City of heroes had awesome build flexbility and potential for thinkering within your archetype. The secret world is a game where the quests and character building are the only part thats worthwhile about it.

 

[octavius]

Dragon Age: Origins deserves a mention, especially modded with RAVage, Advanced Tactics, Smarter AI, Faster Combat/Runspeed, conditional tactical framework extender and GT Core.

You make Dragon Age sound so sexy...

 

[Shadenuat]

IE games don't have that many options, although Icewind Dale 2 can probably be called a party draft game - and it's the only fun thing about that game, imo. But it has options compared to all other IE, and you quickly get to see your characters fight.

From all games ever, I spent most time building parties in Wizardry 8. But it requires time investment to see your characters actually grow into something you planned them to become, as well as metagaming to build them around specific item combinations.

TBH some JRPGs are probably better than most western games at "pick party of random classes, instantly see different gameplay", since they're more gamist in their approach. But someone experienced in JRPGs would be required to name these, I can only repeat what has been said.

 

[Cassidy]

Jagged Alliance 2 with the 1.13 IMP creation system. I doubt there is any other game with character creation where there are so many options to tinker with: Hand to hand, melee, scout, throwing, demolitions, engineer, doctor, night ops, stealthy, shotgun + camo specialist, sniper, automatic weapons, squad leaders that boost Action Points and morale for all other party members and and those major and minor specializations do not include the differences in stat allocation as well. The pre-made characters that can be hired also offer a considerable variety.

A party focused on heavy firepower full of auto weapons, heavy weapons and demolitions specialists will be dramatically differently from a party focused on recon, stealth and mostly silent kills, specially in mid to late game, not counting the different combinations within and intermediaries.

PS: I believe JA2 is the best CRPG Sirtech ever did and I dislike blob turn based combat, thus I'm being naturally biased.

 

[baturinsky]

ToME4, Titan's Quest, some DnD3 game comes close.

 

[Crichton]

TBH some JRPGs are probably better than most western games at "pick party of random classes, instantly see different gameplay", since they're more gamist in their approach. But someone experienced in JRPGs would be required to name these, I can only repeat what has been said.

I think Final Fantasy Tactics might be the best choice. It's got limitless build variety, pretty decent AI and ok-ish encounter design with plenty of random encounters if you like to farm them. Most people use all the overpowered unique characters instead of characters they created themselves which cheapens the experience but if you can resist that temptation, it's a lot of fun. Disclaimer: I've only played the PSX version, I've heard the PSP version is different and maybe better, but I've not gotten around to it yet.

 

[Damned Registrations]

FFT does have excellent build variety, but like pretty much every jrpg out there, lacks any serious challenge. There are maybe half a dozen battles in the entire game that are truly difficult for a decent party. I don't even mean optimized or anything, I just mean top 50% of what people probably played the game with. A strong party is outright invincible. Hell, people do challenges where they beat the game with a single character, or a party consisting of only a single class from start to finish.

If you're going to look at jrpgs, the only real contender would be SMT: Nocturne. Actual challenging fights are fairly common throughout the game, and the dungeon crawls themselves will likely require some care as well. And it's got plenty of variety in how to build your team, with lots of potential tradeoffs offensively and defensively. Starts off a bit slow though, but for such a long game where your party continues to change throughout, it offers a lot of options, and certainly has room for at least one replay with rather different tactics.

 

[pakoito]

FFT does have excellent build variety, but like pretty much every jrpg out there, lacks any serious challenge. There are maybe half a dozen battles in the entire game that are truly difficult for a decent party. I don't even mean optimized or anything, I just mean top 50% of what people probably played the game with. A strong party is outright invincible. Hell, people do challenges where they beat the game with a single character, or a party consisting of only a single class from start to finish.

Is any of the FFT mods any good?

http://www.moddb.com/mods/final-fantasy-tactics-13
http://www.moddb.com/mods/final-fantasy-tactics-rebirth

 

[Greatness]

I think NWN2 probably has the most fun character building of any CRPG I've seen. Too bad the game sucks. Maybe it's better on some online persistent worlds, I never bothered with any of them though. I had far more fun playing NWN2DB than I did playing the actual game.

KotC treads the opposite path. Only a few build options, but the combat and encounters are excellent. It's a must play if you're a combat fag. Other than (SCS)BG2 I can't think of any other game that's on par with KoTC in terms of challenge level/encounter design.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I haven't actually played through any of them. I played the fuck out of FFT when it came out, to the extent that the combat became totally trivial. I'd imagine a lot of the 'easy' / moderate difficulty mods probably bring things up to where they should be, solving a lot of exploits and giving the enemies more appropriate skillsets. The 'hardtype' mod is designed to give people like me a challenge, and does so through a lot of bullshit, instakills and the like.

 

[Dyskolos]

I think NWN2 probably has the most fun character building of any CRPG I've seen. ....

KotC treads the opposite path. Only a few build options, but the combat and encounters are excellent. It's a must play if you're a combat fag. Other than (SCS)BG2 I can't think of any other game that's on par with KoTC in terms of challenge level/encounter design.

Seconding both of these, with Zehir added to NWN2.

I love KotC and have replayed it several times even though I always end with basically the same 3 party members and a fourth near clone of one of those. I'm really hoping the added classes in the eventual sequel solve that issue.

Otherwise ToEE for proper combatfag micromanaging (and quickstart to save your sanity).

Wizardry 8 is another contender if you like playing around with constant rerolling to get the perfect party cross-coverage.

 

[blamzooie]

KOTC is bomb. Problem is that restarting tends to be time consuming.

 

[laclongquan]

Baldur's Gate 2 is a good game to try different builds.

Newer game is NWN2: MOTB. You can try different build right away. THe SoZ expansion is a bit lacking because you need to level up those puppies to be able to appreciate the difference, meaning out of the start fight, and pass a few encounters.

On SF side, it's harder because you dont have access to different weapon right away.

Silent storm. You can try different build, and you can get different weapons after the start fight by stripping all the recruits in the pool. Not sentinels because you need money to hire those recruits.

JA2 is also a good choice because of IMP-char. THough Heavy Weapon is a nonstarter.

 

[Gregz]

Most build variety and good combat faggotry I can think of off the top of my head:

JA2 1.13
Wizardry 8
ToEE
Daggerfall
Zangband
IWD 2

 

[Shannow]

I was wondering, which game that's aged decently is the best to run combat-centric runs in which your party builds and approaches to combat are the most varied. Something like drafting your own skill deck and parting to combat. ToEE, any of the Infinity Engine ones, some of the TCancer usual suspects, any classic TB blobber, RLs like ToME or just Original Sin?

I was first WTF with poeple putting games like NWN2 and DAOoh forth as combat-fag games. Then I re-read this shitpost.
I know it's wasted on modern-day codex but:
Combatfags = People who like good combat in games.
Combatfags != People who like combat-centric games.

 

[DefJam101]

Wiz 8
Wiz 7
Incursion
Crawl

 

[Crooked Bee]

I'll second Labyrinth of Touhou 1/2, Wiz 7 and SMT: Nocturne.

 

[octavius]

Aethra Chronicles may fit the bill. It uses the Rolemaster system.

 

[hoverdog]

KOTC is bomb. Problem is that restarting tends to be time consuming.

character creation is very streamlined though, only three races and three classes. Not a lot of builds to tinker with. ToEE is better in this regard.

 

[TigerKnee]

http://www.moddb.com/mods/final-fantasy-tactics-13

Are you a Masochist? Y/N?

The balance changes between classes is good, the new content/classes are interesting. But the fact that the game is targeted way too fucking hard ruins everything..It requires you to know every single obscure fact about FFT in order to stand a chance of winning anything but the early game battles means it's super niche.

A shame, really.

edit: By the way, if you really want to play the version, the main site that hosts this mod has an updated version.

http://www.moddb.com/mods/final-fantasy-tactics-rebirth

Never tried this one.

Try LFT instead.
http://www.rpgdl.com/lft

 

[Shadenuat]

Jagged Alliance 2 with the 1.13 IMP creation system

Now I'm just a simple JA2 vanilla newfag who is busy LAWing tanks, but does 1.13 change game so much you want something else but full team of C-7/Minimi/FN-FAL users with one or two 95+ strength guys with mortars? You can camo any char too, and only level I found important to have stealthy melee was the Prison. I know I am probably missing whole world out there, but how efficient would be a party of specialists compared to a generalist party?

 

[pakoito]

I was first WTF with poeple putting games like NWN2 and DAOoh forth as combat-fag games. Then I re-read this shitpost.
I know it's wasted on modern-day codex but:
Combatfags = People who like good combat in games.
Combatfags != People who like combat-centric games.

I'm asking for both: good combat and combat-centric. Also, meaningful build variation which is a subset of combatfaggotry.

http://www.moddb.com/mods/final-fantasy-tactics-13

Are you a Masochist? Y/N?

The balance changes between classes is good, the new content/classes are interesting. But the fact that the game is targeted way too fucking hard ruins everything..It requires you to know every single obscure fact about FFT in order to stand a chance of winning anything but the early game battles means it's super niche.

A shame, really.

edit: By the way, if you really want to play the version, the main site that hosts this mod has an updated version.

There's a version on the webpacge with the content and no retardo difficulty tho. I'd start with that one instead.

Try LFT instead.
http://www.rpgdl.com/lft

Or this one. It's a pity it doesn't work on the PPSSPP emu because scaling for 2D sprites in there is just brillo.