Originally Posted by Sharet
Originally Posted by Flooter
Originally Posted by Tuco
Moving from RTWP to turn-based tactical combat is pretty much the only area where I feel Larian made a significant improvement over the original without losing anything in the trade-off.

I agree with Tuco that the change from RTwP to turn-based was for the better.

I could never really figure out what was going on in BG1 combats. Characters tended to clump together, I wasn't sure what the visual effects meant and I always felt like someone in the party was doing nothing because they were done casting their spell, or their target was dead or some other reason. In the end, I'd tap spacebar compulsively, effectively pausing twice every in-game second just to check that my party wasn't about to die out of nowhere.

Turn based combat provides legibility and focus. Those make for memorable moments which can link together to form a compelling combat narrative. He hit me so I shoved him so his pal threw a firebomb so I Misty Stepped. It's been a while since I last played BG1, but I don't recall having a fight that didn't go like: "enemies showed up so we all got into a sweaty pile to see who would drop dead first."

+1


Haha, yeah I always felt like I was playing some version of Rock-em-sock-em robots with 6 players. It was SO much harder to set up complex coordinated maneuvers with the weird stuttering pause and then watch nothing turn out correctly methodology behind RTWP.

On top of that there was way more ways to cheese the AI, like have dangerous foes run in circles around a "locked" on aggro target while you plink away at them (like Drizzit). Combat never felt satisfyingly in any kind of intellectual or tactical capacity.

Combat was more like two people turning hoses on each other to fight, except one is an idiot and easily tricked.


Blackheifer