Party Based RPGs

[JDR13]

Translation = You're looking for an easier game.

 

[Turjan]

Translation = You're looking for an easier game.

As I said, that's part of it. I just found combat as a whole not very enticing in that game. Too slow, too difficult (sic!) and — this is the main point — too much of it. I can only stand combat-heavy games if most of it is filler.

 

[JDR13]

I can only stand combat-heavy games if most of it is filler.

Really? I think most people want combat that's more than just "filler".

I can fully understand the complaint of it being too slow, the battles in Wiz 8 crawl at the default settings. Once tweaked though, I loved the combat in that game.

 

[Turjan]

Really? I think most people want combat that's more than just "filler".

That's fine. I'm not really a fan of games like Titan Quest, where everything looks like filler. I was more thinking of something like BG, where you had lots of filler combat that you could get quickly over with on a map, but interspersed with several key encounters that were interesting and were a bit more engaging. But having to micromanage stuff every few yards is just too tedious to me.

 

[Arhu]

In that sense, Wizardry 8 had too many key encounters, like, all of them, and not enough fillers.

edit: Ah, that's what you said. That said, I didn't say anything.

 

[Noriym]

So I played Wizards and Warriors for the first time. Lol, took me like 2 hours just to get it going on my Win7 box but I was determined. Had to use VirtualPC to Win 98.

Nice game, I see why everyone said it is like wizardry, feels like wizardry 7.5. Not too sure how I missed this game back in the day. I like the little things such as auto pickup projectiles, the rolling terrain of the world and dungeons, the frequent voice overs when I enter key areas or discover secrets, and the fact that intelligence yields more skill points making it good for all classes. I'm still early in the game but lots of puzzles already.

The biggest annoyance is the awkward interface, especially for casting spells. But I'm getting used to it. Overall a solid game, I'll keep playing.

 

[JDR13]

I played W&W years ago and had some fun with it, I didn't finish it though for some reason. I remember trying to get it to run on WinXP about a year ago, without success.

 

[dteowner]

W&W had serious bug issues, including a gamebreaker. There was an unofficial patch from the development team (Activision abandoned the game about 3 seconds after they released it) that fixed it, but many other bugs remained.

There was a series of fan fiction that came from humorous bug-related screenshots. Many of those involved the Uber-Horse swimming (while carrying a party of 6 including an elephant or two) or walking the top of a wall.

W&W wasn't bad to play, but it was disappointing for what it could have been. I swore off DW Bradley titles because of it, which served me well when Dungeon Lords came out.

 

[txa1265]

Need to give W&W another whirl ... wonder if there is a Digital Download version anywhere ... hate the CD-check, and it doesn't work on the netbook with a Daemon Tools image from my CD's ...

 

[JDR13]

The problem is that W&W just won't run right on anything newer than Win 98. You have to use VirtualPC....and that in itself is no simple task.

 

[dteowner]

Didn't run all that well on anything older than Win98, either. Bugfest, man, bugfest.

 

[DArtagnan]

W&W was interesting and I gave it quite a shot back then.

Sadly, it was incredibly buggy and unstable.

 

[skavenhorde]

I never realized just how few party based RPGs there were.

I believe Devil Whiskey has already been mentioned, but I'll second that recomendation. A little buggy, but it's being worked on again. If you would like to replay The Bard's Tale with updated graphics then this is the game to get.

W&W is great. There is still a healthy forum dedicated to W&W over at Ironworks.

Wiz 8 is great also. I highly recommend Dodd's mod if you've played it before. It'll give you a different replay experience than your first run through.

There are a few older games, but many people have a hard time with the graphics. If you can handle goldbox style graphics then FRUA is your best bet. You'll have an endless supply of party Based RPGs and a lot of them are better than the original goldbox games.

More info on FRUA is on this thread. http://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1060964242#post1060964242

Edit: How could I forget the newest addition to the party RPG; Knights of the Chalice. Excellent game, but once again not the best graphics. The font seems to be the biggest problem with most people, but he's working on a new font that is easier to read.

 

[Noriym]

June 2010 Update

I decided to revisit this old post of mine to reflect on the party based RPGs that have come out recently, least the ones I've encountered.

Dragon Age :

This game was exactly what I was always looking for, not because of the story (which sucked), or NPC interaction (was ok), but because of the excellent tactics system that was integrated into the real-time combat. Taking queues from FF12, a well implemented AI-Tactics system allows the user to create and easily tweak elaborate scripts on the various encounters. Brilliant mods like the Advanced Tactics mod allow an even greater instruction set and allows for the leader to be controlled by scripts as well. Combined with Dragon Ages solid mechanics and skill system it provided hours of fun tweaking different builds against the hardest difficulty level. I have finished both the main game and expansion and have restarted many times and played many mods testing builds. I'll have to say M&M 6-8 and TOEE are still my favorite Party-based RPGs but Dragon Age is now #3.

The game definitely was not perfect, was quite linear with little freedom, and a predictable story, but I really loved DA's combat system. While I love pure turned based battles, I think a robust and customizable AI for each party member on a real-time game engine is more exciting. I hope more RPGs adopt them in the future.


Drakensang :

The reasons I liked Dragon Age were the exact reasons I didn't like Drakensang. While I appreciated their attempt to revitalize that old pen/paper game, I hated the lack of control of your companions. Sure you can pause and queue up the next action for each character but this became way to tedious for hard battles since some actions are just a second or two. If they had ANY sort of tactics system like Dragon Age the game would be far more easier to play. I even thought this game looked better than DA, but the control scheme just pissed me off to much.

Undercroft :

I stumbled onto this old-school turned-based gem for the Iphone and can't believe how many hours I've sank into it. It is essentially an Eye of Beholder clone with better graphics and a fleshed out class/skill system. Great item variety and class/skill balance combined with some large dungeons, I have had a blast with this game. Too bad we haven't seen anything like this in 10 years. For ~$5 I recommend it to any RPG gamer with an Iphone/Ipod Touch.

Knights of the Chalice :

I haven't played enough of this yet because the graphics are so god awful. I mean, didn't the gold box games look better then this? Still I am determine to eventually give it a full try since the character creation looks promising (other than the fact that there are only 3 classes ) and hopefully the game can provide some good ole d20 fun.

Anyone else have some to add/recommend?

 

[JDR13]

Anyone else have some to add/recommend?

Since you enjoyed Dragon Age, you'll definitely want to play DA: Awakening.

 

[bkrueger]

Drakensang :

The reasons I liked Dragon Age were the exact reasons I didn't like Drakensang. While I appreciated their attempt to revitalize that old pen/paper game, I hated the lack of control of your companions. Sure you can pause and queue up the next action for each character but this became way to tedious for hard battles since some actions are just a second or two. If they had ANY sort of tactics system like Dragon Age the game would be far more easier to play. I even thought this game looked better than DA, but the control scheme just pissed me off to much.

Not enough control over your companions????

Pure laziness, if you ask me.

If you use the auto pause system to play it like an infinity game, you have absolute control over your companions, much more than in any "real time with queue" system. You can define every single action for every single companion in Drakensang, and you don't even need queueing for that (though it is in there).

You could give me five real time with pause games for one (semi-) old school round based game and I wouldn't take them.

 

[booboo]

I decided to revisit this old post of mine to reflect on the party based RPGs that have come out recently, least the ones I've encountered.

Dragon Age :

This game was exactly what I was always looking for, not because of the story (which sucked), or NPC interaction (was ok), but because of the excellent tactics system that was integrated into the real-time combat. Taking queues from FF12, a well implemented AI-Tactics system allows the user to create and easily tweak elaborate scripts on the various encounters. Brilliant mods like the Advanced Tactics mod allow an even greater instruction set and allows for the leader to be controlled by scripts as well. Combined with Dragon Ages solid mechanics and skill system it provided hours of fun tweaking different builds against the hardest difficulty level. I have finished both the main game and expansion and have restarted many times and played many mods testing builds. I'll have to say M&M 6-8 and TOEE are still my favorite Party-based RPGs but Dragon Age is now #3.

The game definitely was not perfect, was quite linear with little freedom, and a predictable story, but I really loved DA's combat system. While I love pure turned based battles, I think a robust and customizable AI for each party member on a real-time game engine is more exciting. I hope more RPGs adopt them in the future.

…

[

I enjoyed Dragon Age, but the tactics were a cop out. The vanilla tactics system (not sure about mods) did not cater for situations/combos which I often needed/wanted i.e. if you see something, apply salve X, then do his unsupported action, then go there and do that and then …) It only catered for simple rule types. The fact that you had limited tactics slots - which you were forced to chain to try and get more complex behaviour - only made matters worse. You (as the scripter) had to try and force your combat logic into their simple production rule system. That should have been Bioware's job - one should not have to spend 'hours tweaking' the system to make the game enjoyable (unless you enjoy that kind of thing of course, which I do not)

The other big omission was an event queue per player - I know they considered it superfluous with their 'tactics' but I missed it. I would like to say: drink a potion, then activate something, then run over there and attack X. If you have a queue, you can put all that in there, and then issue instructions to the next character. No relying on the script and hoping it does something sensible.

@bkrueger - I agree, never had issues getting my Drakensang party to do what I wanted, although it did require tight control.

 

[Ergonpandilus]

I guess Noriym never noticed that <ctrl>+<click> chains the commands, like in Kotor. The very best thing of Drakensang is the game mechanics without bugs(!) and rocking ruleset that feels familiar (D&D) and yet new at the same time. The weakness of Drakensang 1 is the story, characters and dialogs. Well they are not bad but not very good either.

And even the movement is easy if you just hold down right mouse button and use WASD keys to move.

 

[Noriym]

Lol, looks like I summoned the Drakensang Defense Force. Perhaps I should reload my old save, as I recall I was stuck on that 3 witch quest.

The thing is that DA and Drakensang came out bout the same time and it was the control and tactics system I loved of DA over Drakensang, apparently some did not, to each his own I guess.

The vanilla tactics system (not sure about mods) did not cater for situations/combos which I often needed/wanted i.e. if you see something, apply salve X, then do his unsupported action, then go there and do that and then …) It only catered for simple rule types. The fact that you had limited tactics slots - which you were forced to chain to try and get more complex behaviour - only made matters worse.

True, vanilla was limited, but the Advanced Tactics mod gave you many more options and 25 slots for tactics, as well as AI control of your selected party member.

Anywayz, surely there has been other party-based games to slip under my short radar. Hmmm, I think my radar is RPGWatch.

 

[Ergonpandilus]

I'd love to see more party based RPGs with freedom to create your own party, like in Icewind Dale.