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Recent CRPGs like Deadfire and Kingmaker implemented TB modes after launching with RTWP, and therefore were designed with RTWP in mind, making the transition a bit rough.
A consequence in Deadfire at least is that the same fights take around 3x as long, some guys actually calculated statistics. The PoE games are kinda known and a bit infamous for their mob sizes though.
Should BG3 have smaller scale encounters to compensate for combat speed? Like when you invade a bandit camp and instead of all of them being pooled in one place, have many groups of 4~5 enemies which you can pick separately, maybe also use stealth based characters to reduce encounter size.
In the recent gameplay reveal it seems that Larian is leaning more towards this mindset, as you can sneak up a goblin camp and kill enemies whilst they sleep, also inside the spider caves the party fights most spiders 4v1.
In my opinion yes, the game should be designed with large amounts of smaller scale encounters, which already would make it drift away from the DoS games.

Last edited by Danielbda; 09/07/20 05:13 PM.
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I´m used to play tactical/strategy maps full of enemies to beat, so I prefer large encounters or tough bosses myself instead of large amount of fights with trash mobs;
When you are playing with rotating shifts the boring fights are the ones that are unlikely to beat your party and it becomes a chore to kill them. It´s better to have challenging, tactical encounters most of the time so you can fully take advantage of all the options (character features, terrain, consumables, spells) you have at your disposal instead of having to kill weak enemies with auto-attack.
Since there´s no respawning in BG3 I assume that´s the optimum way they could go, IMHO.

No reason to fight trash mobs if there´s no respawning or grinding, you can make all the fights unique and tricky instead of fighting copy-paste easy enemy encounters (Nothing wrong with that in other games, like sandbox, JRPGs,... that have different mechanics, I meant only for this particular game).

Last edited by _Vic_; 09/07/20 06:59 PM.
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Originally Posted by _Vic_
I´m used to play tactical/strategy maps full of enemies to beat, so I prefer large encounters or tough bosses myself instead of large amount of fights with trash mobs;
When you are playing with rotating shifts the boring fights are the ones that are unlikely to beat your party and it becomes a chore to kill them. It´s better to have challenging, tactical encounters most of the time so you can fully take advantage of all the options (character features, terrain, consumables, spells) you have at your disposal instead of having to kill weak enemies with auto-attack.
Since there´s no respawning in BG3 I assume that´s the optimum way they could go, IMHO.

No reason to fight trash mobs if there´s no respawning or grinding, you can make all the fights unique and tricky instead of fighting copy-paste easy enemy encounters (Nothing wrong with that in other games, like sandbox, JRPGs,... that have different mechanics, I meant only for this particular game).

A trash mob to me means having a large number of the same or similar enemies. The difficulty rating of those enemies is not relevant. So a large mob of difficult enemies is just as much a trash mob as a large mob of weak enemies, and if anything even more annoying and a chore. I absolutely agree that increasing the number of enemies does not make for a good combat experience. But this doesn't change if you just go from a lot of enemies with 10 hp each to a lot of enemies with 100 hp each.

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Originally Posted by _Vic_
I´m used to play tactical/strategy maps full of enemies to beat, so I prefer large encounters or tough bosses myself instead of large amount of fights with trash mobs;
When you are playing with rotating shifts the boring fights are the ones that are unlikely to beat your party and it becomes a chore to kill them. It´s better to have challenging, tactical encounters most of the time so you can fully take advantage of all the options (character features, terrain, consumables, spells) you have at your disposal instead of having to kill weak enemies with auto-attack.
Since there´s no respawning in BG3 I assume that´s the optimum way they could go, IMHO.

No reason to fight trash mobs if there´s no respawning or grinding, you can make all the fights unique and tricky instead of fighting copy-paste easy enemy encounters (Nothing wrong with that in other games, like sandbox, JRPGs,... that have different mechanics, I meant only for this particular game).


Large encounters in a TB envirorment means staring at your screen for 5 minutes waiting to take your turn. It's the main issue with Deadfire's TB mode.

Last edited by Danielbda; 09/07/20 07:21 PM.
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Deadfire was not meant for turn-based combat from starters.
Turns in games like forged in blood, Xcom, Battle chasers, Fire emblem (games where you fight mobs of 8-10 enemies) does never take more than some seconds and you have the option to allow "enemy faster turns" or "enemy instant turns", something you do not find in POE2 TB game or PF:K TB mod, so I understand that could give many people some distorted notions about what´s the standard in most games.
And in BG3 I doubt you will have to face so many enemies in a single encounter.

https://youtu.be/MVuav3M1RVw?t=345

https://youtu.be/_-wKu1Xgby8?t=1060



When you have to kill creatures only using basic attacks, with little chance of them killing any of your characters is even worse than to be able to go and have a coffee until the fight is over because you have to be there to point and click, and that´s what makes combat awfully long, not the objective time, IMHO.
That´s why I prefer challenging fights with tactical tricks or difficult terrain against lots of enemies or few tough enemies if you do not have "enemy respawning" or repetitive fights.

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Originally Posted by Danielbda
Large encounters in a TB envirorment means staring at your screen for 5 minutes waiting to take your turn. It's the main issue with Deadfire's TB mode.

When I last played Battle Brothers there were 20 enemies or something on the map. I rolled my eyes and said "Fuck no, I am not doing this shit anymore for a measly reward" and quit. I never touched the game again.

Large encounters in turn-based games are annoying as hell, which is why the term "trash mobs" exists. The only turn-based games where I never had the feeling the combat was dragging out were Fallout 1, Fallout 2 and Underrail... probably because they aren't party based.

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>trash mobs
i dont think theres an "official" definition of trash mobs, but let me be clear.

When i refer to trash mobs in Infinity engine encounter design, i use the MMORPG definition of trash packs. These are used in Raids as "filler" enemies between bosses, usually in hallways.

A hard encoutner featurign many enemies that is still designe dto kill you is not a trash pack. A trash encounter is an encoutner speicfically designed ot be a speedbump and not to outright kill the party.

If a boss summons multiple enemies that attack the party, thatds caleld "adds" and not "trash mobs"

So no, i dont think the arugment that trash mobs are just another kind of encounter type is valid.
a trash encounter is specificall there to pad out the content, which is fine, but not in a turn based game.

I think a more valid arugment is to say that in a turn based game, you probaby dont watn encounters with large ammounts of units due to the time constraints.
but this is also kind of irrelevant if multiple enemies can move at the same initiative score, which is what DMs have doen for ages IRL.
You could argue this might be confusing for new players, but you could just make it a toggleable option.

Last edited by Sordak; 10/07/20 02:59 PM.
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Please check the pinned topic about TB/RT: this has been endlessly debated and invariably fails to reach any consensus, often in a rather shouty manner. If you feel you have something new to add, please do so in the appropriate venue i.e. the pinned topic.


J'aime le fromage.

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