Which RPG has the worst combat?

[Lhynn]

Arcanum had the shittest combat in any RPG ever

Fixed.

Better than NWN.

Bullshit

NWN has the worst RtwP combat ever. Arcanum has passable turn based and a fast real time mode to get past trash encounters quickly. NWN's combat is tactically poor because you have only one char under your control, and it's slow as fuck in comparison to similar systems (Infinity engine games have much faster-paced RtwP, quicker animations etc, while NWN is horribly slow). I haven't plyed any other game with RTwP that was this much of a drag. No party control makes it worse becaue it means you have little to no tactics, single char D&D dungeon crawling is fucking pointless.

Arcanum has amazing combat in comparison.

More bullshit. Go replay.
Arcanum combat is fucking insanely boring, there is quite simply no depth to it. NWN is about your general strategy and approach to different enemies instead of on the fly tactics, this plays out especially well on persistent worlds or modules where pause function is deactivated. Also fucking OG and expansion campaign dont fucking count, this is 2014, there are plenty of modules that do a better job showcasing NWN fucking combat than those campaigns ever did.

I have played plenty of games with abysmal combat, both RTwP and turn based, NWN is not even remotely as bad as those.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Another War was quite bad.

 

[Night Goat]

Slaves to Armok: God of Blood

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

lol NG haha! He's fighting a bush!

"You punch Niththeb the Bush in the Root right your right hand!"

 

[mondblut]

lol NG haha! He's fighting a bush!

"You punch Niththeb the Bush in the Root right your right hand!"

He is also grinding a bunch of skills, if you didn't watch the log closely. A perfectly reasonable behavior for any RPG.

Now, dying in Dungeon Master after slamming against a wall repeatedly - that was retarded indeed. But it doesn't count as combat, so...

 

[Lhynn]

Dragon Age 2.

 

[Invictus]

I loathe clickfest games like Diablo, bit at least those are called ARPGs to differenciate themselves from proper games, and as much as Morrowind has been bashed by turning into a stat based clickfest, I would say the wporst offenders are Oblivion and Skyrim since they changed the stat based to hit chance from the prior games in the series for player controled swing and misses...but without any sort of depth whatsoever.
Setting up Blade of Darkness today and suing my custom config file which plays exactly like the later TES games (leftmouse swinhgs, rightmouse blocks, spacebar jumps) it struck me how a 13 year old game managed to have such fun and varied combat by adding simple keystoke and mouse moves which make combat so much fun and can even work in First Person
In the end, I consider the combat in games like Arcanum or NWN at least servicable they were trying to do something cool and they missed but seeing these console retarded combat systems for the new TES games is much worse
They could add some more depth to combat no doubt but they don't becasue it would be complicated to do it with a controler instead of a M&K

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

lol NG haha! He's fighting a bush!

"You punch Niththeb the Bush in the Root right your right hand!"

He is also grinding a bunch of skills, if you didn't watch the log closely. A perfectly reasonable behavior for any RPG.

Now, dying in Dungeon Master after slamming against a wall repeatedly - that was retarded indeed. But it doesn't count as combat, so...

Yes, nothing like sparring with shrubbery to improve one's Humanoid, Mammal, Titan and Titan Female Body skills.

Grinding bushes with root sounds good though.

 

[Perkel]

More bullshit. Go replay.
Arcanum combat is fucking insanely boring, there is quite simply no depth to it. NWN is about your general strategy and approach to different enemies instead of on the fly tactics, this plays out especially well on persistent worlds or modules where pause function is deactivated. Also fucking OG and expansion campaign dont fucking count, this is 2014, there are plenty of modules that do a better job showcasing NWN fucking combat than those campaigns ever did.

I have played plenty of games with abysmal combat, both RTwP and turn based, NWN is not even remotely as bad as those.

NWN has bad combat. ToEE shows how D&D3,5 combat shines where realtime D&D3,5 sucks.
Realtime was created only for papamoles. Because only papamoles think that turnbased=bad

 

[Lhynn]

More bullshit. Go replay.
Arcanum combat is fucking insanely boring, there is quite simply no depth to it. NWN is about your general strategy and approach to different enemies instead of on the fly tactics, this plays out especially well on persistent worlds or modules where pause function is deactivated. Also fucking OG and expansion campaign dont fucking count, this is 2014, there are plenty of modules that do a better job showcasing NWN fucking combat than those campaigns ever did.

I have played plenty of games with abysmal combat, both RTwP and turn based, NWN is not even remotely as bad as those.

NWN has bad combat. ToEE shows how D&D3,5 combat shines where realtime D&D3,5 sucks.
Realtime was created only for papamoles. Because only papamoles think that turnbased=bad

ToEE suffered from awful encounter design, even if its combat mechanics were flawless, so fuck that noise.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

I think we have not yet seen a game with both excellent mechanics and excellent encounter design. A few come close but nothing approaching amazing.

 

[mondblut]

Yes, nothing like sparring with shrubbery to improve one's Humanoid, Mammal, Titan and Titan Female Body skills.

As long as it works, why on earth would a reasonable player NOT do that? That's hardly any more autistic than standing under blows for hours doing nothing to grind blocking skill.

 

[Lhynn]

I think we have not yet seen a game with both excellent mechanics and excellent encounter design. A few come close but nothing approaching amazing.

JA2 was made in such a way that even random encounters could be pretty amazing.

 

[Perkel]

More bullshit. Go replay.
Arcanum combat is fucking insanely boring, there is quite simply no depth to it. NWN is about your general strategy and approach to different enemies instead of on the fly tactics, this plays out especially well on persistent worlds or modules where pause function is deactivated. Also fucking OG and expansion campaign dont fucking count, this is 2014, there are plenty of modules that do a better job showcasing NWN fucking combat than those campaigns ever did.

I have played plenty of games with abysmal combat, both RTwP and turn based, NWN is not even remotely as bad as those.

NWN has bad combat. ToEE shows how D&D3,5 combat shines where realtime D&D3,5 sucks.
Realtime was created only for papamoles. Because only papamoles think that turnbased=bad

ToEE suffered from awful encounter design, even if its combat mechanics were flawless, so fuck that noise.

If you are assuming RtWP games have better combat encounter then no. Sure ToEE encounters were not designed well in few cases but lets be frank here almost all RTwP games have bad encounter design because most of the time you have party which goes to fight buffed to oblivion where enemies start to cast protective spells after fight start. That complely beside biggest problem with RTwP. Trash mobs. Those games are filled with tons of trash mobs. And when you have trash mobs then there is no tactic involved just mundane spells, skills, abilities repeated till everyone dies.

When you have Turn based combat you know you can't just put 100 lizards in dungeon and get away with that. Because it would tale literally hours to get past that dungeon in TB. So instead of filling every corridor with trash mobs TB combat designer instead focus on fewer but much more interesting enemies and obviously harder enemies.

So instead of spending hour fucking every lizard in dungeon and rolling eyes out of boredom you spend that hour fighting 2-3 fights where you constantly thinking tactically.


JA2 was bit different because its combat model demanded it. JA2 was all about tactical combat where you can't see enemy and suprise, stealth, movement, positioning was everything. Also you couldn't level up dudes to some god level HP. Every dude had more or less the same HP with difference being only gear. So even those shitty recruits with lucky shotgun could take out your dude. So random battle with elite squad was ALWAYS challenge and it had always this FUCK YEAH feel when you finished combat without casualties.

RTwP has internal design flaw same as TB. Difference here is that flaw of RTwP affect everything where flaw of TB only affects how much time you need to spend on every fight.

 

[Volourn]

"NWN has the worst RtwP combat ever. Arcanum has passable turn based and a fast real time mode to get past trash encounters quickly. NWN's combat is tactically poor because you have only one char under your control, and it's slow as fuck in comparison to similar systems (Infinity engine games have much faster-paced RtwP, quicker animations etc, while NWN is horribly slow). I haven't plyed any other game with RTwP that was this much of a drag. No party control makes it worse becaue it means you have little to no tactics, single char D&D dungeon crawling is fucking pointless.

Arcanum has amazing combat in comparison."

\Bullshit.


"Sure ToEE encounters were not designed well in few cases but lets be frank here almost all RTwP games have bad encounter design because most of the time you have party which goes to fight buffed to oblivion where enemies start to cast protective spells after fight start. That complely beside biggest problem with RTwP. Trash mobs. Those games are filled with tons of trash mobs. And when you have trash mobs then there is no tactic involved just mundane spells, skills, abilities repeated till everyone dies."

No.


"When you have Turn based combat you know you can't just put 100 lizards in dungeon and get away with that. Because it would tale literally hours to get past that dungeon in TB. So instead of filling every corridor with trash mobs TB combat designer instead focus on fewer but much more interesting enemies and obviously harder enemies.

So instead of spending hour fucking every lizard in dungeon and rolling eyes out of boredom you spend that hour fighting 2-3 fights where you constantly thinking tactically."

Did you even play fukkin' TOEE or vast m,ajority of other TB games? Gb games also were the Kings of Trash Mobs tm. FFS



Bottom line is DOS has abvoe average combat but overall the combat is easy. I died 5 fukkin' times and only one maybe two of thsoe wer e'legit'. The others were me not giving a fuck. The Void Dragon had like 20,000 APs and he still never fukin' threatened me. LMFAO

\Also HP bloat? At level 21, I had over 2k HP. LMFAO

 

[Volourn]

"But Arcanum was passable. It's always bashed for its combat, but it's not the combat system that sucks hard, it's the encounter design for the most part."

I actually like Arcanum's combat and find it udnerrated but it is nowhere near as good as NWN's.

\NWN combat is some of the best combat ever.

The worst? PSt (despite it being buiild with the same fukkin' literal engine that was used in games with actual good combat), DS, ES series, POR; ROMD, DTU, and I'm sure hudnreds more I try to forget.

 

[Onholyservicebound]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Infinity_Engine_games

 

[Nikaido]

But Arcanum was passable. It's always bashed for its combat, but it's not the combat system that sucks hard, it's the encounter design for the most part.

Sooo. What kind of encounter design do you propose to give you incentives to do things other than harmspam? the system seems broken at its core imho.
As for which is worse between NWN and Arcanum in terms of combat.. that's like comparing diarrhea to constipation. Neither make for an enjoyable experience.

 

[Lhynn]

1)If you are assuming RtWP games have better combat encounter then no. Sure ToEE encounters were not designed well in few cases but lets be frank here almost all RTwP games have bad encounter design because most of the time you have party which goes to fight buffed to oblivion where enemies start to cast protective spells after fight start. That complely beside biggest problem with RTwP. Trash mobs. Those games are filled with tons of trash mobs. And when you have trash mobs then there is no tactic involved just mundane spells, skills, abilities repeated till everyone dies.

2) When you have Turn based combat you know you can't just put 100 lizards in dungeon and get away with that. Because it would tale literally hours to get past that dungeon in TB. So instead of filling every corridor with trash mobs TB combat designer instead focus on fewer but much more interesting enemies and obviously harder enemies.

So instead of spending hour fucking every lizard in dungeon and rolling eyes out of boredom you spend that hour fighting 2-3 fights where you constantly thinking tactically.


3) JA2 was bit different because its combat model demanded it. JA2 was all about tactical combat where you can't see enemy and suprise, stealth, movement, positioning was everything. Also you couldn't level up dudes to some god level HP. Every dude had more or less the same HP with difference being only gear. So even those shitty recruits with lucky shotgun could take out your dude. So random battle with elite squad was ALWAYS challenge and it had always this FUCK YEAH feel when you finished combat without casualties.

RTwP has internal design flaw same as TB. Difference here is that flaw of RTwP affect everything where flaw of TB only affects how much time you need to spend on every fight.

1) You are generalizing too much, not all RTwP has bad encounter design, nor is it a characteristic of that combat mechanic in particular (but of RPGs in general). Prebuffing isnt a characteristic unique to RTwP, i dont even know why you bring it up. Trash mobs also arent a characteristic unique to RTwP but of games in general. mundane spells, skills, abilities and repetition also arent a characterstic unique to RTwP...
BG 2 is arguably one of the best examples of encounter design of the cRPG genre and its RTwP. Its so good in fact that it made RTwP enjoyable, which is no small feat.

2) What? thats not a characteristic of TB games, plenty of them have huge amounts of filler combat.

3) Bullshit, combat model didnt demand shit, weve had plenty of turn based RPGs with modern weapons of varying degrees of shittyness, JA2 combat was good because the people that made it were talented and knew what the fuck they were doing.

 

[DeepOcean]

Ultima 7 no doubt, the combat was so awful and a clusterfuck that actually made me give up on the game. I finished Arcanum and NWN so they must had done something right.

 

[Lhynn]

\NWN combat is some of the best combat ever.

 

[thesoup]

Arcanum, hands down. I don't think you could make a worse combat system if you tried your best.

 

[Invictus]

It would be interesting to have a poll about liking or disliking the IE combat system; we got quite an interesting look with the Torment combat poll a few months ago but I daresay that after seeing such a good and fun system in D OS we could have a 50/50 split nowadays
Since Darklands is one of my favorite games and I replayed that endlessly I got quite used to that system way before the IE games so I didn't mind that at all

 

[Perkel]

1) Generalizing yes ? Do most of RTwP games have terrible encounter design ? Fucking yes. So GENERALIZING IS OK. One or two games out of all games do not make this problem invalid. That is problem with real time combat not just "with Pause". BG2 is sure good example of encounter design in that genre but i still fucking remember goblins/mephits in library (irenicus dungeon) or kobolds in sewers. That is beside fact that i mentioned. In BG2 or any IE games you could buff your party to oblivion before fight. That is fucking flaw in design don't say it isn't.

2) What is filler combat ?

Filler combat is combat in which you switch off your brain because encounter is designed for you to just click things and don't think. Fucking kobold with simple bow and you are rolling with lvl 10 party. That is a filler combat.

Fighting 3 skeletons near some random house ? Seems like filler combat. But if those skeletons can hurt you and you start to use your brain then that starts to become proper combat not filler one.

Filler combat =/= filler combat. Filler combat in RT games often only means cut wave of foes and there will be another wave. shitty trash mobs in numbers and so on. Create something like this in TB and you will have 3 hour boredom marathon and any half dumb designer could see something like this from a mile and do something with it.

Take for example whole NWN1. Take prison. Fucking shit ton of trash mobs everywhere. Something like this doesn't exist in TB games. Why ? Because killing all of them in TB would take literally hours as i mentioned. So your TB filler combat is completely different to RTwP filler combat.
And it is also the case of % of filler combat. Take almost any RTwP RPG and most of it is filler combat compared to TB games.

3) Combat model absolutely demanded things i spoke of. Flat system means more or less anyone can hurt you and things i said like positioning, stealth, mobility were CRUCIAL to JA2 combat. "had plenty of turn based RPGs with modern weapons" Now that is bullshit. Because TB rpg with weapons =/= TB rpg with weapons. There is a reason why JA2 combat system shits all over combat systems in other games. Fallout Tactics comes close but it isn't flat system as JA2 system.

Just compare Fallout 1 system with JA2 and see how fucking shitty Fallou1 system is compared to JA2. You could just take powerarmor get minigun and wipe away fags. In JA2 there isn't any magical spell that will make you invincible so you take on 3-4 rookie dudes with shotguns at close range without any positioning or tactic like in JA2 and your dude is sure to be dead in a turn or two.

 

[Commissar Draco]

F01 is not tactical turn based wargame with RP elements Comrade; F01 is about RP the type of VD you like and in JA2 you can ignore E-mail and don't roll the laptop Man/Gal at all; its like comparing apples to oranges. As for Solo RPG genre F01 combat is excellent balance of simplicity, speed and tactical options where most of combat can be avoided by diplomacy or stealth anyway.