Kingmaker - Impressions from GeekDad

SSIGuy said:

That issue is what separates many good RPGs from great ones imo. If a game can offer satisfying, interesting combat that provides a sense of accomplishment on top of a great story, world and characters then that game will be something special. But then, I do generally enjoy combat more so perhaps my bar is actually lower than yours or other people's.

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Nah, there's nothing implicitly higher or lower about it.

We all enjoy different things.

Combat can be fun - it's just a little over-familiar after you've been playing games with mostly combat for 34 years

I think the problem with combat in many RPGs is that a lot of it tends to be filler that is just there to slow down the rate at which you progress through the game. I can only think of a small number of games that managed to produce filler fights that managed to still be tense, exciting and/or strategic, but they are out there and some were turn based and some were real time with pause. But it doesn't happen that often and many of the RPGs I've enjoyed were despite the combat, not because of it.

So I guess combat is really important to me because I'll enjoy the game so much more if it's done right. But if it's done wrong, well I've become resigned to the fact that most games will do it wrong, so that's not necessarily a deal breaker if other aspects are good.

daveyd said:

And don't forget the atrocious pathfinding which requires more pausing to correct.

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In Battle Brothers, pawns issue a zone of control. Pathfinding ignores the zone of control: it means that a pawn is stuck in the first controlled tide it steps on, even when it has enough APs/fatigue to move further. It matters as surrounding a target is vital in many ways.

Have yet to hear one streamer complaining about the atrocious pathfinding. Streamers deal with the situation by splitting the path in two. They move their pawn outside the zone of control to a tile next to the controlled tile they want to go on and then move the pawn from it onto the controlled tile.


This shows once again that RTwP has no audience. Players who do not want to use waypoints will conflate this with atrocious pathfinding.

wolfing said:

But when your source material is all turn-based, and all the rules are made for turn-based combat, when every rule and every spell and every skill depend on a turn-based system, why force the change to Real Time?

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Nothing states they are not using the turn as their time base unit, leading players to play a string of turns and pausing at the start/end of a turn.
In which case, their product is turn based without being ugoigo.

Maylander said:

Another reason to choose RTwP over TB is if you want bigger battles.

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Players fall in panic mode to handle a 4vs 1. They can even manage this kind of encounters without spamming the pause function.

If these devs have some insight, they are going to avoid implementing bigger battles.
No matter what, players as they lack the basic skillset to play RTwP go by default in a UgoIgo approach. As they cant manage a 4 vs 1n a 4 vs2 in real time, they will go in ugoigo mode to handle a 4vs 10 or 4 vs 12.

No miracle to expect here.

And these devs would be well advised to finally deliver what their customers want: a ugoigo battle system.

I play RPGs *because* of the combat. To me, story, exploration, music, voice acting, etc. is all secondary to combat and character progression. Probably because I have a ridiculously bad memory, I can't recall the story of any RPGs I've played more than like a year ago. Baldur's Gate? hmm... I was some dude and there was a thief woman in the beginning, and there was this big dude with a rat. That's about all I remember from playing both BG1 and BG2, but the combat system I remember perfectly.