Something was lost when combat moved from tell to show

[Bustamonte]

Bustamonte, even if I do agree with you, no need to harass Octavius; with Felipepe, he's one of the most dignified and monocled gentleman on this forum. Just saying...

But I agree, I could never finish BG because of the tedium of dealing with the trash mobs, never knew about the macros, but even then, it would have been a tedium programming them for me. But I can understand that people prefer the possibilities that it created.

On the other side, I did finish BT 1, 2 and 3, even if they were a slog to get through. But then I loved Wasteland and Dragon Wars which had the same combat. Their general design was just better.

He called me a retard, he can eat my fucking dick.

Anyway, this thread is nothing about encounter design. It's arguable that BG has a lot of trash mobs, but that is not really the point.

The only point is that with every little detail shown on the screen suddenly the tiniest combat becomes much more of an event. That could be good in the case of JA 2, but it is in many cases a bad thing where there is not much meat to go along with the extra cumbersome slowness of the combat.

What should take 2 seconds to decide and execute, suddenly takes 10 or 100 times as long. When there are no real extra options as in BG then all that extra time spent is merely boring padding to the game time.

 

[Bustamonte]

OP is a fucking idiot who doesn't know BG. The combat is not slow or mostly filler. Also, kiting is inefficient and for newbies only.

No, you are the fucking idiot. If you are too stupid to figure out you can solo the game with a sling within the first hour then you should not be calling anyone an idiot.

And factually speaking it IS slow combat in comparison to BT. THAT IS A FACT IMBECILE. As for being slow in general you must compare it to something to make that determination.

But I will say there is ZERO challenge to anyone with a brain, and it is super fucking boring combat. Though an in depth analysis of BG is not really the point of the thread, if you think otherwise you are not worthy to speak to me, or perhaps even live.

 

[octavius]

And factually speaking it IS slow combat in comparison to BT. THAT IS A FACT IMBECILE.

Actually it's faster, but you are just too stupid to understand it even when it has been spelled out to you several times.

 

[Jaesun]

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?members/bustamonte.21940/ignore

 

[Lilura]

No, you are the fucking idiot. If you are too stupid to figure out you can solo the game with a sling within the first hour then you should not be calling anyone an idiot.

Of course a campaign designed for a six-person party becomes tedious if you solo-kite with a sling, you fuckstick. The fastest way to tear up the campaign is with a fighter/mage dual-class. Hint: she doesn't wield a sling.

And factually speaking it IS slow combat

60 AI updates per sec, fuckstick.

But I will say there is ZERO challenge to anyone with a brain, and it is super fucking boring combat.

I'm sure you beat Durlag's Tower solo kiting with a sling, fuckstick.

Though an in depth analysis of BG is not really the point of the thread, if you think otherwise you are not worthy to speak to me, or perhaps even live.

Read my in-depth analysis and lrnsmth, fuckstick.

 

[Bustamonte]

No, you are the fucking idiot. If you are too stupid to figure out you can solo the game with a sling within the first hour then you should not be calling anyone an idiot.

Of course a campaign designed for a six-person party becomes tedious if you solo-kite with a sling, you fuckstick. The fastest way to tear up the campaign is with a fighter/mage dual-class. Hint: she doesn't wield a sling.

And factually speaking it IS slow combat

60 AI updates per sec, fuckstick.

But I will say there is ZERO challenge to anyone with a brain, and it is super fucking boring combat.

I'm sure you beat Durlag's Tower solo kiting with a sling, fuckstick.

Though an in depth analysis of BG is not really the point of the thread, if you think otherwise you are not worthy to speak to me, or perhaps even live.

Read my in-depth analysis and lrnsmth, fuckstick.

You're a fucking idiot. Get out of my thread.

 

[Lilura]

You're a fucking idiot. Get out of my thread.

Get you and your thread out of the Codex, fuckstick.

 

[Bustamonte]

I doubt modern games are worse than Ultima IV. Now that's a game with glacial combat. And there's nothing you can do about it.

Ultima 4 also SHOWS the combat in grizzly detail, genius. Including painfully slow animations of every missile that's fired. That is exactly the sort of thing I am talking about.

Or you can be a retard and complain about about "filler combat" in BG1 20 years after it was released.

So you didn't call me a retard? What's that? The laws of transitivity don't apply to English?

But then I didn't complain about filler combat that is some idiocy you made up. Because you actually ARE a retard.

 

[Bustamonte]

Get you and your thread out of the Codex, fuckstick.

Eat the peanuts out of my shit you filthy whore.

 

[Lilura]

I bet you have only played BG in the BG2 engine; and are a rest-spammer.

 

[Zombra]

Anyway, this thread is nothing about encounter design.

Right, because the basic format of a combat system, how enjoyable it is, and how encounters are designed have nothing whatever to do with each other.

 

[Bustamonte]

Right, because the basic format of a combat system, how enjoyable it is, and how encounters are designed have nothing whatever to do with each other.

Did you bother to read my opening post or the title? None of those is anything to do with this thread. Except arguably "enjoyment" which is simply meaningless.

The same issue exists even within blobbers as I have already stated. Just look at wiz 8 as opposed to BT 1. Every little spell and attack has some animation to sit through and it can be quite cumbersome.

That is not to say you can't make slow combat in a blobber due to encounter design. But 99 beserkers, 99 beserkers, 99 beserkers is a combat I would expect to be slow.

Of course combat speed is related to encounter size, but the efficiency of combat resolution is purely based on how the game was programmed and designed.

 

[Bustamonte]

I bet you have only played BG in the BG2 engine; and are a rest-spammer.

If you took damage in BG 1 you are a fucking retard. You can solo the game with a sling easily.

So no, wrong again. Which should be obvious since I have played BT series and wizardries you fucking IDIOT. Now kill yourself.

 

[Zombra]

Sounds like you're talking about the basic format of combat systems and encounter designs to me, dude. Last chance to make up your mind before you get the Zombra special dumbfuck award.

 

[Bustamonte]

Sounds like you're talking about the basic format of combat systems and encounter designs to me, dude. Last chance to make up your mind before you get the Zombra special dumbfuck award.

The first example I gave was the exact same encounter in BG compared to the exact same encounter in BT. If you got encounter design from that i don't know what to tell you.

Let's make it simple. One guy versus one guy. Which is actually the most common case in BG.

For one the resolution is quick. For the other slow.

Your options selected are all that matters.

There is not much options to select in BG compared to BT anyway, but that is kind of the point of using that example. Because you more or less do the same things just one is much slower.

Now JA 2 is slower too and shows more, but it's also much more tactical. The point is not to show that one combat system is better than another, ie the mechanics that resolve combat. The point is to show that, especially for RPGs, the method of feedback to the user for their actions can have a big effect on the combat - often for the worse in modern games.

 

[Zombra]

OK, I believe that's what you were saying. Well constructed. Reprieve granted and I'll move on to simply "too bored to care".

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Bloody hell poor Bustamonte
You shouldn't respond to the derailing posts about BG encounter design to begin with

 

[Xathrodox86]

That's why I love paper RPG's so much. There you really have to use your imagination, instead of watching a glorified slugfest.

 

[octavius]

I doubt modern games are worse than Ultima IV. Now that's a game with glacial combat. And there's nothing you can do about it.

Ultima 4 also SHOWS the combat in grizzly detail, genius. Including painfully slow animations of every missile that's fired. That is exactly the sort of thing I am talking about.

Either you are a clever troll, or you are really a retard.
I mentioned U4 as a game that is much better example of slow combat than BG1 is.
Do you understand anything at all???
In the nine years I've been following RPG Codex, you are the most imbecile poster I've seen. Congratulations!

 

[Lilura]

In the nine years I've been following RPG Codex, you are the most imbecile poster I've seen. Congratulations!

A lower lifeform even than the worm who lied about beating BG with Sleep alone, this sling-kiter hovers around amoeba level.

 

[Juggie]

I played through M&M 1 and 2 last year. I don't think there are many games as tedious with so much trash filler as these. The combat is about repeatedly mowing downs dozens to hundreds of trash monsters which pop out at you every couple of steps.

In M&M 1 the difficulty of the fights is extremely arbitrary and random. It has little to do with player choices and much more with what creatures you encounter and what the random "AI" decides to do.

In M&M 2 the difficulty is more consistent and reasonable, but for most fights you don't even need to do anything else than hold the autoattack button. Truly the glorious combat that will deliver us from decline.

And even for the encounters that provide meaningful and balanced challenges viable options at any moment are few. Sure this makes the combat flow fast, but is this desirable?

 

[octavius]

If you think MM1 and 2 are bad, then you have never played Bard's Tale.
MM1 is area scaled. If an area is too tought, try another. It's brutal in the beginning,, though.
And if you regularly face hundreds of enemies in MM2, then you must have grinded a lot, by fighting the very trash mobs you talk about.

 

[Juggie]

Not saying they are bad. Just that there's way too much filler in both. Saying that blobbers in general provide fast but challenging combat which isn't grindy is silly.

M&M 1 required lot of grinding to do some quests. To even stand a chance in some areas you had to go through a lot of fights in lower level areas to level up.

It wad pretty much the same in M&M 2 just that the structure of the game made it feel more natural.

 

[octavius]

There's no need to grind in MM1 and MM2; just choose a different, easier area first.

 

[Juggie]

And do what?

In M&M 1 there are very few "quests". The game doesn't give you much incentive to do shit. If you only focus on doing these there's no way you can finish the higher level ones without actively seeking out fights. Experience gains from fights are so small that you have to go through a lot of fights to level up. Fighting just the fights mandatory for "quests" is not enough to level up or get item upgrades for the next "quest".

In M&M 2 it's more natural as I wrote previously. With many more quests the leveling and gearing up progress is almost fast enough for you to skip active grinding. You still have to kill a lot of stuff to finish the quests nonetheless. You can argue this is not grinding, but most of the fights don't provide meaningful challenge. This is trash or filler for me.