Everyone should just be trying their best to match D: OS turn based combat now. This Baldur's Gate remnant type combat is a relic that's the worst thing about these games nowadays, and stripping the D&D off didn't really make it any better. Whereas Divinity combat is just about the best top down rpg combat ever.
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TYRANNY |OT| Sometimes, Evil Wins [Tiers For Fears]
- Thread starter Nzyme32
- Start date
Yea the feedback for your actions is also really bad. Like I put a globe of water on someone's head which causes them to drown. In the game this is represented by them continuing to fight while they take 3 damage per turn. Like is someone gonna keep swordfighting when they are literally drowning in the middle of the street?
Going from Divinity: OS to this was rough in terms of combat.
This isn't even close to the IE games combat other than that it is real time with pause. Other than that, they have nothing in common.
Having not played Pillars or Divinity yet, the combat in this reminds me of the Bioware Kotor/Dragon Age stuff where there's an ok amount of depth, but at some point you become aware that you can just run up to enemies and your AI will auto-fight at super speed with + mode so why bother outside boss/tough fights where you may need to micro-manage more to keep people alive.
Are you playing on hard?
Sanctuary
Member
Drown is for silencing casters. The name is kind of ridiculous though, because much like you said; you'd expect drowning to actually show more severe results than it does.
Divinity has good combat as long as you're playing with two casters. Otherwise, it's not so far removed from this system of simply using your best/longest cooldown abilities at the start of each fight in longer fights to get the most use out of the cooldowns. Also, the combat in BG2 and even BG is much more satisfying than it is here. Just because it's RTwP doesn't mean it's the same RTwP. Although I personally do prefer turn based most of the time, just because RTwP often feels like it has much less finesse and is mostly you just using abilities in between the times the game auto attacks. If you're going to spam pause anyway, what's the point other than for the auto attacks on easy encounters?
BG and BG2 (frankly that version of AD&D in general) relies far too much on metaknowledge and rock/paper/scissors. Needing to somehow just know that various enemies are immune to various effects, else spending limited shots of those spells or abilities for no effect (or more likely, save scumming to repeat the fight with the requisite knowledge) . And the whole My Dispel Magic beats your Protection from Evil, your Pierce Magic beats my Spell Reflection cycle can be pretty tedious. POE's combat was a (largely unsuccessful) attempt to get around those issues, but ultimately those issues with the Infinity Engine games were a large part of their tactical complexity.
I have the monster manuals and such with me while I'm playing. (still have my old 1st ed books from back in the day, everything else is PDF files) Makes the experience that much richer with all the added background info on everything. And all that old 1st & 2nd edition art was the shit too.
Unlike Baldur's Gate, both this and PoE is in actual real time with limiting factor being individual characters recovery speed, rather than having 6 second turns for actions going on behind the curtains despite masquerading as real time.
The isometric style is similar, but they're quite far apart as far as combat mechanics go.
The isometric style is similar, but they're quite far apart as far as combat mechanics go.
I kind of agree, but this is why the Bestiary in PoE was so great, instead of having to dig up some dusty DnD stats online or just having them visible at all times, you slowly learned them by exploring and fighting.
I personally love BG2's hard counters, it makes magic mean something and forces you to work around it instead of giving you an extra 10% that will help you eek out a victory over 15 rounds of slugging back and forth. So if someone has protection from magical weapons, you need to be creative and either disable it or use some of those wands you never use with your rogues and stuff. If someone has spell reflection, you go backstab them or whatever. In PoE you can pretty much approach every situation the same way.
I also agree that the system goes out the window in ToB, but that ~20 level curve in BG2 was pretty perfect, especially with the nonlinear progression allowing you to fight against things you weren't supposed to (and win, if you got lucky).
EDIT: Going forward, I really wish Obsidian and Co would license a modern tabletop RPG system or at least learn from them. Shadowrun 5e and whatever version Storyteller is currently using are so much better for scaling with dice pools. Please look into that instead of trying to keep a pseudo D20 alive for nostalgia's sake.
LurkerPrime
Member
Beyond the general chaos of RTwP, an issue I've been having with Tyranny's combat so far is the poor selection of AI settings, particularly for the main character. Like, I don't think the player character uses skills at all; Verse and Barik constantly switch targets or sit on ability usage in a way that leads to everyone being vulnerable; and the mage I have constantly suicides by going into melee to fight when it's unnecessary with the thrown weapon equipped; in general it just leads to a lot of needless micromanaging that the game is unsuited for.
Like, in a RTwP game, if I have to micromanage every character after every single action they perform to stop them from making insane choices it really should just be turn-based.
I do think there's depth there to make RTwP work, but the AI really isn't up to par. At the very least it needs a Dragon Age: Origins-styled AI programmer to make them use their abilities in a decent way. (The AI "roles" are absolutely bonkers and do not seem to work properly if you're lacking all of the abilities they describe.)
Lawbreaker as well. The uses of it so far have been appropriate to the kind of character I was trying to make, so I'm pleased with it.
Actually, regarding backgrounds, something the game doesn't mention is that they give a boost to specific skills (you can see this later in skill allocation by hovering over them). This realisation got me to invest in subterfuge, which has been the core skill of my character now. It helped me boost subterfuge enough to get an awesome chest early on in the first area that boosted my unarmed damage by like 40%. (as a monk, this was a gamechanger)
Never leave home without a rogue!
Definitely. I'm gobsmacked by how good the lore tooltips are. Feels like something that these kind of games should have had ages ago.
Plus the other uses of them are absolutely genius.
Like, in a RTwP game, if I have to micromanage every character after every single action they perform to stop them from making insane choices it really should just be turn-based.
I do think there's depth there to make RTwP work, but the AI really isn't up to par. At the very least it needs a Dragon Age: Origins-styled AI programmer to make them use their abilities in a decent way. (The AI "roles" are absolutely bonkers and do not seem to work properly if you're lacking all of the abilities they describe.)
Lawbreaker as well. The uses of it so far have been appropriate to the kind of character I was trying to make, so I'm pleased with it.
Actually, regarding backgrounds, something the game doesn't mention is that they give a boost to specific skills (you can see this later in skill allocation by hovering over them). This realisation got me to invest in subterfuge, which has been the core skill of my character now. It helped me boost subterfuge enough to get an awesome chest early on in the first area that boosted my unarmed damage by like 40%. (as a monk, this was a gamechanger)
Never leave home without a rogue!
Definitely. I'm gobsmacked by how good the lore tooltips are. Feels like something that these kind of games should have had ages ago.
Plus the other uses of them are absolutely genius.
Heh, I love how CRPG threads seem to always turn into RTwP vs TB threads at some point. I definitely prefer TB myself, never been a fan of RTwP and how chaotic it always feels, but I guess that's why the story mode exists! Combat has been relatively fun in Tyranny anyway, I like the fact that very few of the skills and abilities have a per rest limit, can just spam spells and 2H attacks.
This is definitely the best thing about the mechanic. If I just don't care about some area, archon or lore thing, I can simply not highlight the word rather than be forced to read 30 lines of dialogue that explains it.
This is definitely the best thing about the mechanic. If I just don't care about some area, archon or lore thing, I can simply not highlight the word rather than be forced to read 30 lines of dialogue that explains it.
You can do both well or screw them up. RTwP does seem to encourage more trash mobs and a larger amount of low impact abilities however.
All this does make me happy that No Truce With the Furies is trying something new and doing away with the combat system altogether and instead solving everything via skill checks in dialog.
Moff
Member
I agree with this and it's also why I think, and I am aware this will disgust many in this thread, that both Dragon Age 1 and 2 had the best rtwp mechanics of the last 10 years.
you just had so much control over the fight, tanking was strong with powerful taunts, and you had many crowd control abilities. Dragon Age 2 added powerful and fun synergies. Dragon Age 3 was complete trash because it lacked this kind of control.
in POE and Tyranny, most of the time I don't feel I control the fight, it feels random. now that might be intentional and some might argue you don't need control over a fight for it to be good, but for me it is.
Sanctuary
Member
I sure wish Heroic Defense did anything, aside from eating up a talent point for no reason. I've replayed the same fight six times just to see, and it never activates once.
In case you had not figured it out yet, it's alt + left click. This was driving me nuts, so I just decided to start hitting random keys around shift (which is usually what key you would use). The control options are useless at showing this.
In case you had not figured it out yet, it's alt + left click. This was driving me nuts, so I just decided to start hitting random keys around shift (which is usually what key you would use). The control options are useless at showing this.
And on the other hand, RTwP makes the possible trash mob encounters go by really fast. Even with easy foes, TB tends to be a bit slow. So I definitely recognize the pros and cons of both.
FF XII has the most enjoyable RTwP combat system
e: also No Truce With the Furies is going to (hopefully) be fucking amazing
I felt like PoE had tons of control, especially at launch. Monsters rarely unengaged tanks and fighters had tons of engagement slots. The level one oil slick spell would just crush entire groups and then you'd charm half of the enemy pack and roll over them. It looks like it's dialed back some in Tyranny I guess.
Very true, I just think that most devs get destroyed by the players if they don't fix an abundance of trash mobs in TB cRPGs (Torment seems to be going that way).And on the other hand, RTwP makes the possible trash mob encounters go by really fast. Even with easy foes, TB tends to be a bit slow. So I definitely recognize the pros and cons of both.
FF XII has the most enjoyable RTwP combat system
e: also No Truce With the Furies is going to (hopefully) be fucking amazing
Thinking of some good TB systems, Underrail does a good job and Battletech looks really good from that one gameplay video.
bati
Member
That's because designers love to stroke it over their (often not so) nice looking animations. A lot of TB games don't even offer animation or movement speed sliders. Pure heresy.
THE best TB rpg to come out in the last few years. Also that sweet sweet game balance and build variety, hnnngh.
Interfectum
Member
3 hours in, no issues so far.
no bugs after 4 hours. If you are not afraid of 1-2hours of reading before there is any new battle, buy it
I haven't had many issues. Some people are experiencing long load times. I get them when I load my saved game. Otherwise, it is smooth. Some people have framerate issues, which I luckily have not.
I am aware of one bug: If you eat food, the effect will be permanent if you level up and the food buff is still active. I haven't had this happen to me, but I have read about it.
While I like Pillars of Eternity more, the release state of the game has been better.
(These impressions are after clearing act 1.)
Probably depends on your point of reference. Did you like BG2 or ToEE combat?
Lumination
'enry 'ollins
For the sake of a modern comparison, I really liked DA:O's combat. It felt weighty, with tons of CC options and even had some combos (freeze + I forget what = shatter). I also think they perfected party development and banter.
Really, why hasn't anyone copied DA:O?
Really, why hasn't anyone copied DA:O?
I'm 14 hours into the game and I by far prefer this to Pillars of Eternity. I found the combat in Pillars of Eternity flawed as well but I think the new magic system much improved it. I found the spells in Pillars to be quite bland.
With the new spell/rune system and timers instead of limited number of spells the combat is a lot more enjoyable though. Playing a mage feels useful again and the whole level up as you use them do make my two mages quite distinct from each other even if I could craft similar spells for both of them.
I have some doubts about the 20 hours thing though. Playing on hard judging by how little I have visited of the map I can't imagine it ending in just 6 more hours. Oh final thing I love is much less pure dungeon crawling. Fighting is fun but not when I have to clear 4-5 levels of just monsters for quest main quest.
With the new spell/rune system and timers instead of limited number of spells the combat is a lot more enjoyable though. Playing a mage feels useful again and the whole level up as you use them do make my two mages quite distinct from each other even if I could craft similar spells for both of them.
I have some doubts about the 20 hours thing though. Playing on hard judging by how little I have visited of the map I can't imagine it ending in just 6 more hours. Oh final thing I love is much less pure dungeon crawling. Fighting is fun but not when I have to clear 4-5 levels of just monsters for quest main quest.
LastGamer84
Member
Because that style of RPG really had its last big hurrah with DA:O. Modern gamers demand instant gratification for the most part, and can't enjoy the older combat system.
At least that's my take on it. The excellent Noah-Caldwell Gervais on YouTube actually makes a pretty good point in one of his videos(I think the Baldur's Gate one) that the reason older games feel different is because older generations of gamers were more familiar with the slower combat of pen and paper D&D, which allowed to enjoy games like Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, etc.
DA:O is closer to those games in terms of combat even if is more modern. Modern gamers, however do not have the familiarity with older combat systems that allows them to enjoy the slower, more tactical aspects. You can see this in the transition of Fallout 2 to Fallout 3 as well.
This is not a critism of modern games mind you, merely an observation.
I really want to pick up this game, but I still have to finish pillars my backlog is so bad...
Poodlestrike
Banned
Short version is, the CRPG renaissance is basically entirely predicated on the idea that "old games >>> new games." No comment on whether or not that's correct.
So the games that get funded are ones that are... just like the old games, because that's what the people opening up their wallets want. The crowd paying for games like Pillars to get made view DA:O as the beginning of the end. They're not gonna fund another.
bati
Member
It's not that black and white. I've been gaming since the mid 90s, went through the golden age revival of the crpgs (BG) and enjoyed those games that had deep combat systems (RTwP and TB) and yet I can't come to terms with Obsidian's combat in PoE and Tyranny. It just doesn't click, I've tried getting into PoE multiple times and I feel like a helpless spectator when I try to do something of note in the chaos they call combat.
On the flip side, D:OS showed that there are plenty of younger gamers out there who thoroughly enjoy deep combat systems loaded with stats, status afflictions, combos, etc.
Lumination
'enry 'ollins
Ok, this makes sense unfortunately. Shame because all these complaints about combat in both this game and PoE reminded me of what could have been!
PoE hasn't blown me away, so I'll keep checking out impressions on Tyranny before committing.
CrichtonKicks
Member
I don't know- when I first played BG2 in 2000 I had to go out and buy a copy of the 2E Monster Manual because the game did a poor job at communicating enemy immunities (ie this guy you need +2 weapons to hit, etc).
I love how the lore (green) tooltips indicate information your character should already know. I was replaying DA:O recently and there was a lot of really stupid stuff where my human noble (!) could ask stuff like "Who rules Ferelden again? Which one is the capital city?"
This along with the Bestiary are some of Obsidian's best innovations to the genre. Adding stats to monsters and monster abilities actually makes it a useful reference. Getting rid of the Mass Effect style "encyclopedia" full of shit someone wrote during their coffee break in favor of actually relevant tooltips is also amazing.
Chairman Yang
if he talks about books, you better damn well listen
Shadowrun's combat was low-rent XCOM, definitely. But that's still a solid basis for a combat system! And unlike Pillars, it was infrequent enough, and with sufficient encounter variety, to rarely feel like a repetitive slog.
CrichtonKicks
Member
I agree it's a solid basis. But that's all in the case of Shadowrun. They did nothing with it so combat totally bored me.
Poodlestrike
Banned
Yeah, but those superficial resemblances are a lot of what people want. Isometric combat ONLY, all written dialogue, etc. People don't know in advance that when they say "like DA:O" they only mean the good bits, they just hear Dragon Age, and go "whelp that was the one that killed my childhood."
CrichtonKicks
Member
DA:O released at an odd time. It wasn't retro the way we see current retro CRPGs (Wasteland, Pillars, Divinity, Underrail, etc). It was just a really, really delayed game that had been development hell forever so it felt like a game from 2003 being released in 2009.
It's kind of amazing that it managed to garner the popular success that it did.
It's kind of amazing that it managed to garner the popular success that it did.
Agreed. Harebrained's Shadowrun combat is pretty much a vertical slice of someone having to adapt Shadowrun combat to digital form in like 3 months. It kind of hits all the notes, but doesn't really capture it.
Shadowrun's combat is supposed to be rare, quick, tactical and deadly. If you hit combat, you've already fucked up. It never really got in the way, but it was far from good. Luckily the rest of the game made up for it.
LurkerPrime
Member
I'm finding the combat works a lot better now that I have a grasp on spellcasting and unit resistances. The spell system in particular is making it pretty fun now. (I didn't realise that lore is essentially the only barrier for spell-learning.)
And the act one(?) finale is awesome. Loving this game.
This. is. Tyranny.
Like, as far as bad turn-based combat, Wasteland 2 (vanilla) is king in my mind. It's a true low-rent XCOM derivative, with a lot of trash encounters that add nothing. A lot of it feels like busywork, pretty much the antithesis of XCOM.
And the act one(?) finale is awesome. Loving this game.
This. is. Tyranny.
I got that feeling from the first two games, but what they've added to Shadowrun's combat with Dragonfall: Director's Cut and Hong Kong has made it really shine; it doesn't really feel like "XCOM lite" anymore, but its own, distinct thing. Harebrained is really good about making each encounter feel unique, which bad turn-based games fail to do.
Like, as far as bad turn-based combat, Wasteland 2 (vanilla) is king in my mind. It's a true low-rent XCOM derivative, with a lot of trash encounters that add nothing. A lot of it feels like busywork, pretty much the antithesis of XCOM.
Sanctuary
Member
Whatever you do, don't loot with a character that has a full inventory. I've had to reload maybe four times now due to the game eating what I was trying to loot, because my inventory was full. It's a really stupid system too. In just about every other game since forever, if you don't have room, the items just stay in the container. They don't disintegrate from your greedy fingers.
LurkerPrime
Member
Character inventory or party inventory? Does the latter even have a limit...?
Horrible bug, in any case. Thanks for the heads up.
bati
Member
I don't know if you've played the DC or not but imo it improved the combat a lot. Those perks they added really spiced things up. Also, the combat is much faster in DC, I'm not sure if they lowered enemy health or what but you generally move from group to group really quick. On Seasoned (or whatever the third difficulty is called) you can drop enemies with 1-2 good AR bursts. Some snipers are straight up oneshots. That said, neither W2 or Xcom can hold a candle to the true king of tactical TBS - JA2
.As for Tyranny (or rather, Obsidian's new ruleset), animlboogy hit the nail on the head. There are too many low impact skills - what good is 5-10% faster casting when the recovery time is 3+ seconds? Or +5 to defense rolls, in a system where the roll range is ~100? Or special attacks that add +2 dmg compared to an auto attack and add a movement speed debuff to the target (yay)? PoE is littered with this. In Tyranny you at least get some worthwhile talents like Armor Pen very early and they make quite a lot of difference on weapons with low damage ranges.
Did you check if the items went into stash?
decoyplatypus
Member
I finished Act One. I may take a break and go back to Civ 6 for a while. The conversations and choices are fun so far, and I really do like that you get rewarded for inspiring both loyalty and fear. But my god the combat is a slog. I feel like I'm just slowly rotating through my abilities, doing a little movement to set up AoE stuff where appropriate. I am tempted to drop the difficulty and put everyone on AI just so I don't have to click buttons for marginal effects any more.
I'm something of an apologist for Pillars of Eternity's combat. I grant all the arguments against it, but I also think it succeeded on at least three counts: (1) major fights like the Act One finale and most bounties challenged default strategies and rewarded thoughtful play; (2) level-ups were exciting because many upgrades--though not nearly enough--felt like they would have a tangible effect on combat; (3) combat could be resolved quickly.* It was fun at times. I've seen worse. And Tyranny is very clearly worse.
*This is somewhat of a mixed success because, ideally, you would rather not have so many trash encounters that a player wants over quickly.
I'm something of an apologist for Pillars of Eternity's combat. I grant all the arguments against it, but I also think it succeeded on at least three counts: (1) major fights like the Act One finale and most bounties challenged default strategies and rewarded thoughtful play; (2) level-ups were exciting because many upgrades--though not nearly enough--felt like they would have a tangible effect on combat; (3) combat could be resolved quickly.* It was fun at times. I've seen worse. And Tyranny is very clearly worse.
*This is somewhat of a mixed success because, ideally, you would rather not have so many trash encounters that a player wants over quickly.
I am liking the game so far. Just finished my first "assignment" and looking forward what comes next. I am still a bit to minx-max regarding my choices all the time. Next play through I will definitely try be a bit more in line with what I want my char to be. Already saw a few options I will definitely try out in one of my games.
Forerunner
Member
Picked it up and play for about two hours. I like it so far. I was a bit skeptical at first because I didnt like PoE. I just couldnt get into PoE at all. This on the other hand I like. I dont know if its just the world and setting, but Im enjoying it a lot more than PoE. I really like the conquest part at the beginning when you build your own world. The only problem I have so far is performance. It kind of bad, I mean I dont have the best pc (i7-960, 980GTX, and 32GB ram). Im getting like 30 fps with frequent dips.
CrichtonKicks
Member
See I think that Tyranny really gets rid of most of the trash encounters- that's why combat feels longer. Each encounter is more of an event.
You don't have a GSync monitor do you? There is a bug with GSync that give you a low framerate unless you disable it.