Why I prefer Fallout's combat over BG combat...

[Roguey]

Turn based is always superior.

Not when you get to move or wait for move of dozens characters each turn. Those Melcar guys? Yeah, thats why FO combat sucks.

That's what SFall's for. There are other issues, speed isn't one of them.

 

[DragoFireheart]

For RPGs, turn-based is always superior. Fallout was at fault due to lacking controllable party members.

 

[Volourn]

Have the turn based retart fanboys ever played POR2? FFS That alone disprovres the bullshit theory that 'turn base is aways better'.

Heck, even TOEE, which has an awesome combat system has worse combat than BG2 becuase the actual combat encounters suck the fukkin' ballz.

 

[GarfunkeL]

The Aftermath/shock/light series ain't that wonderful. Decent enough games if you are burned out with X-Com and JA2 but the combat is clunky and extremely repetitive as there's a dearth of different maps. 7.62 has a better RTwP-system, imho, though I do still prefer TB, especially JA2 or ToEE-like over that.

 

[Twinkle]

RTwP is shit by design, IE combat, esp. melee or archery, sucks.

Even the most primitive TB combat systems, like the one implemented in FO, are superior when it comes to tactical options and character control.

 

[Johannes]

RTwP is shit by design, IE combat, esp. melee or archery, sucks.

Even the most primitive TB combat systems, like the one implemented in FO, are superior when it comes to tactical options and character control.

Bullshit. There's not too much tactical options in IE, but FO is even more mindless. You might still like it better for whatever reason but saying it has more tactical variety is just wrong.

And IE is hardly the pinnacle of RTwP design anyway.

 

[Twinkle]

What you can do during a combat "round" in IE:

-move
-click the LMB and let something awesome happen, meaning using an standard attack. Pretty much the only thing available to fighters/archers.
-active an ability.
-use an item.
-cast a spell.

That is all. Not to remind that in harder battles it's hindered with a constant spacebar mashing or using clunky auto-pause. You are never sure if a char is performing a designated task or just glitched and stands there doing nothing thanks to mismatching animation.

FO:

-you can as well move, picking your destination with a way superior precision without wasting time.
-something awesome, aka standard attack.
-tweak your weapon (burst/single etc.)
-perform a called shot to any body part.
-use an item.

Magic obviously doesn't apply.

I'm talking mostly about controls, without touching encounter design, class and monster variety, spells etc. In that regard, IE-based games, drawing from a much bigger pool, win by a large margin compared to FO, where it all boils down to killing things with pew-pew stuff versus bashing things in melee, with former being massively superior. But all the tactical variety in IE games comes from quantity, not quality. RTS engines powering RPGs should have died in fire.

 

[LittleJoe]

In IE combat it's possible to snatch victory from the jaws of almost certain defeat. Even going so far as to resurrect dead npc's in the middle of a battle.
There are so many more options you can use.
Whereas in Fallout, if you get it wrong, or if your retarded companions get it wrong, it's reload time.

 

[Yeesh]

The Aftermath/shock/light series ain't that wonderful. Decent enough games if you are burned out with X-Com and JA2 but the combat is clunky and extremely repetitive as there's a dearth of different maps. 7.62 has a better RTwP-system, imho, though I do still prefer TB, especially JA2 or ToEE-like over that.

I seem to recall that 7.62 lost me immediately by starting out as some sort of lame click-around-and-solve-quests adventure game instead of letting me put together a team and start shooting guns right away.

(NOTE TO DEVS: Remember how JA2 starts? Do that.)

But I do remember playing BE5 for a good while.

Anyway, don't you find that a modern implementation of RTwP is more organic and realistic, as opposed to JA2's (admittedly intricately balanced and tuned) interrupt system? The latter leads to some pretty arbitrary and out of phase results.

 

[Coyote]

What you can do during a combat "round" in IE:

-move
-click the LMB and let something awesome happen, meaning using an standard attack. Pretty much the only thing available to fighters/archers.
-active an ability.
-use an item.
-cast a spell.

That is all. Not to remind that in harder battles it's hindered with a constant spacebar mashing or using clunky auto-pause. You are never sure if a char is performing a designated task or just glitched and stands there doing nothing thanks to mismatching animation.

FO:

-you can as well move, picking your destination with a way superior precision without wasting time.
-something awesome, aka standard attack.
-tweak your weapon (burst/single etc.)
-perform a called shot to any body part.
-use an item.

That's not exactly a fair comparison when you keep in mind that IE games had 100+ spells to choose from (Torment might have had fewer) with highly-varied effects, many more potions than Fallout has drugs, multiple abilities at higher levels in BG2 such as whirlwind attack that can be considered analogous to choosing to switching between weapon modes (and incidentally, I would consider using a called shot as falling under that category), several pieces of equipment that had activated abilities, bard songs, multiple controllable characters rather than just one. Hell, they even have more ammo types (and that's ignoring the +1, +2, +3 distinctions and the fact that FO's ammo types don't work as advertised).

Now, someone may come back and say, well yeah, but you could get by with only 25% of the IE spells without becoming much less effective, bard songs were mostly useless (aside from in Icewind Dale 2), etc. But the point is that yeah, of course if you drastically oversimplify what you can do in a system based on the way you categorize the possible actions, you can make it seem like there's no tactical depth to it. And whether the system is clunky or not has nothing to do with tactical depth, either.

For me, the choice is simple: in Fallout, when you raise your skill high enough, there is no reason not to do eye shots all the time (and even if FO had better encounter design, this would still be an issue). Even before that, there's usually a clearly optimal route based on your equipment and skill levels at any given moment. You only control one character. Armor scales up in a linear fashion (aside from Tesla Armor's single advantage over Power Armor in FO2). In BG2, even at higher levels, you may not want to use your most powerful abilities in an encounter because you need to conserve them and several encounters require you to use more varied tactics than spamming your best attacks (most notably, encounters with mages, dragons, and other full adventuring parties). You control a full party of characters. Some armor has advantages other than AC that might make you consider using it in special circumstances. And that's BG2; the Icewind Dales are even better in this regard.

Do I generally think turn-based has greater potential for tactical depth than real-time? Sure, and that's why I like the combat in games like JA2 and KotC better than in BG2. But FO doesn't have very good combat as far as turn-based games go. Likewise, if I had to choose between FO and BG2, I'd pick FO for reasons that largely have nothing to do with combat. But if we're comparing just the combat in FO with the combat in BG2, BG2 wins by a landslide IMO.

(Comparing it to BG is a little tricker; a lot of the combat encounters come down to luck, reloading once you know your opponent's methods, or cheesy tactics at lower levels, and you have fewer options. Overall, I'd rate its [edited to stave off the grammar nazis] combat about equal to FO's due to these shortcomings.)

Edit2: Damnit, I could have sworn that ToEE used a heavily-modified IE.

 

[villain of the story]

Combat in FO can quickly turn into a puzzle based on adjusting your movements. Every action point counts. It's very gamey. BG combat rarely gets to that level.

 

[Jaesun]

What you can do during a combat "round" in IE:

-move
-click the LMB and let something awesome happen, meaning using an standard attack. Pretty much the only thing available to fighters/archers.
-active an ability.
-use an item.
-cast a spell.

That is all. Not to remind that in harder battles it's hindered with a constant spacebar mashing or using clunky auto-pause. You are never sure if a char is performing a designated task or just glitched and stands there doing nothing thanks to mismatching animation.

FO:

-you can as well move, picking your destination with a way superior precision without wasting time.
-something awesome, aka standard attack.
-tweak your weapon (burst/single etc.)
-perform a called shot to any body part.
-use an item.

That's not exactly a fair comparison when you keep in mind that IE games had 100+ spells to choose from (Torment might have had fewer) with highly-varied effects, many more potions than Fallout has drugs, multiple abilities at higher levels in BG2 such as whirlwind attack that can be considered analogous to choosing to switching between weapon modes (and incidentally, I would consider using a called shot as falling under that category), several pieces of equipment that had activated abilities, bard songs, multiple controllable characters rather than just one. Hell, they even have more ammo types (and that's ignoring the +1, +2, +3 distinctions and the fact that FO's ammo types don't work as advertised).

Now, someone may come back and say, well yeah, but you could get by with only 25% of the IE spells without becoming much less effective, bard songs were mostly useless (aside from in Icewind Dale 2 and ToEE), etc. But the point is that yeah, of course if you drastically oversimplify what you can do in a system based on the way you categorize the possible actions, you can make it seem like there's no tactical depth to it. And whether the system is clunky or not has nothing to do with tactical depth, either.

For me, the choice is simple: in Fallout, when you raise your skill high enough, there is no reason not to do eye shots all the time (and even if FO had better encounter design, this would still be an issue). Even before that, there's usually a clearly optimal route based on your equipment and skill levels at any given moment. You only control one character. Armor scales up in a linear fashion (aside from Tesla Armor's single advantage over Power Armor in FO2). In BG2, even at higher levels, you may not want to use your most powerful abilities in an encounter because you need to conserve them and several encounters require you to use more varied tactics than spamming your best attacks (most notably, encounters with mages, dragons, and other full adventuring parties). You control a full party of characters. Some armor has advantages other than AC that might make you consider using it in special circumstances. And that's BG2; the Icewind Dales are even better in this regard.

Do I generally think turn-based has greater potential for tactical depth than real-time? Sure, and that's why I like the combat in games like JA2 and KotC better than in BG2. But FO doesn't have very good combat as far as turn-based games go. Likewise, if I had to choose between FO and BG2, I'd pick FO for reasons that largely have nothing to do with combat. But if we're comparing just the combat in FO with the combat in BG2, BG2 wins by a landslide IMO.

(BG is a little tricker; a lot of the combat encounters come down to luck, reloading once you know your opponent's methods, or cheesy tactics at lower levels, and you have fewer options. Overall, I'd rate it's combat about equal to FO's due to these shortcomings.)

Well said.

 

[Malakal]

Combat in FO can quickly turn into a puzzle based on adjusting your movements. Every action point counts. It's very gamey. BG combat rarely gets to that level.

Oh yes, this. I remember fighting the Master in FO. Step from behind the pillar, shoot shoot, step behind the pillar to hide in his turn. FO definitely needed reaction shots.

 

[Einhander]

I'd be interested in a kind of turn based where the enemy combatants would move in phases:

Say
part of team = 1
part of team = 2
11 2 1111 22 11
So they would be ordered by initiative or something (and also get interrupts naturally) and would move at the same time if they are not player controlled and in a "block".

I wonder how would that work. Would it be unnatural?



We will never know

Try Wizardry 8

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

I just managed to get Fallout running decently thanks to PlayOnLinux and I have spent some time curb-stomping the Blades and chatting on IM at the same time.
The main reason why I prefer Fallout's combat is that it's more involving. My character doesn't run on autopilot, I don't have to wait for his initiative to kick in so that he would use a wand, etc.
Also, stuff like aimed attacks makes the combat much more involving.

I just click and something awesome happens.

it's more involving

curb-stomping the Blades and chatting on IM at the same time

As opposed to a game that doesn't let you alt-tab out of it every five seconds to calmly chat with someone, thus being less involving

I play Fallout in a window. Also, it is involving, because I still get the full satisfaction from punching defenceless people to death while wearing Powered Armour. And being able to choose between eyes, face and cunt adds a nice variety of critical hits.

 

[ZbojLamignat]

For me, the choice is simple: in Fallout, when you raise your skill high enough, there is no reason not to do eye shots all the time (and even if FO had better encounter design, this would still be an issue). Even before that, there's usually a clearly optimal route based on your equipment and skill levels at any given moment.

And this does not refer to IE games how exactly? Mind flayers - summon Mordekainen sword and wait a few minutes. A group of mob weak enough to be vulnerable to death spell - insta kill all of them with death spell. Hostile adventurer group - web + some cloud, wait a few minutes. Strong, boss-like crature - warrior + whirlwind or lower resistance + magic missile/finger od death. You do the same, optimal things all the time. On one hand, you have to change your approach from time to time, on the other - most of those approaches , as portrayed above, are much more boring and less exciting that eye-shooting mutants in Fallout or melting people with plasma. And those examples are mostly about BG2, really, because in BG and IWD 1-2 the enemies force change of weapons very rarely and the same combinations of few spells are even more powerful.

Just as you can use a few hundred different spells or character/item abilities in BG2, you can use different drugs, tinker npc orders, use close range burst weapons, snipe from far away, beat with powerfist, cripple legs to slow meele creatures down, cripple hands to lower accuracy etc. It all sounds cool and interesting and you have fun with it when you're on your first playthrough and you have to reload some fights, try new tactics and weapons. But now you simply don't do it, you just know how to kill everything quickly.

Do I generally think turn-based has greater potential for tactical depth than real-time? Sure, and that's why I like the combat in games like JA2 and KotC better than in BG2. But FO doesn't have very good combat as far as turn-based games go.

I don't quite understand why do people have such expectations of F1/2 combat and repeatedly compare it to games that are built around tactical squad fighting. Fallouts are crpg games and ones in which combat isn't really the most important feature (you can actually avoid it almost completely, which is very rare for games that claim to be crpg). Of course the system is far less sophisticated than in X-Com or JA. But it's fun and it works just fine. Props for making it turn based instead of popamole button mashing.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Do I generally think turn-based has greater potential for tactical depth than real-time? Sure, and that's why I like the combat in games like JA2 and KotC better than in BG2. But FO doesn't have very good combat as far as turn-based games go.

I don't quite understand why do people have such expectations of F1/2 combat and repeatedly compare it to games that are built around tactical squad fighting. Fallouts are crpg games and ones in which combat isn't really the most important feature (you can actually avoid it almost completely, which is very rare for games that claim to be crpg). Of course the system is far less sophisticated than in X-Com or JA. But it's fun and it works just fine. Props for making it turn based instead of popamole button mashing.

It's because Fallout just begs for such comparison. The game *had* a JA2-like combat system before they have lost the GURPS license, so there may be some things left in the game design that make people feel that it should be like that.

Also, I wouldn't agree that it works just fine. It's too luck based and has nasty stuff like lots of human enemies having illegitimate SPECIAL stats that give them too much advantages at the same time despite that they have a superiority of numbers.

Just as you can use a few hundred different spells or character/item abilities in BG2, you can use different drugs, tinker npc orders, use close range burst weapons, snipe from far away, beat with powerfist, cripple legs to slow meele creatures down, cripple hands to lower accuracy etc. It all sounds cool and interesting and you have fun with it when you're on your first playthrough and you have to reload some fights, try new tactics and weapons. But now you simply don't do it, you just know how to kill everything quickly.

The problem is that stuff like crippling limbs isn't a viable tactic in most of encounters due to how random the critical hits are. You can't just count on making some amount of damage and crippling it because of it as in GURPS. You need to have a lucky critical hit roll and the highest critical chance is for the eyes.
In BG usually these special options like using some spell or ability are much more reliable.

 

[ZbojLamignat]

It's because Fallout just begs for such comparison. The game *had* a JA2-like combat system before they have lost the GURPS license, so there may be some things left in the game design that make people feel that it should be like that.

To each one his own I guess. I never felt that I'm missing things like the ability to go prone while playing Fallout. I also firmly believe that making every random encounter take half an hour with the necessity of realoding 20 times due to being killed in the first turn by a shot from nowhere would make Fallout a much worse game. And I'm a person that loves brutal tactical squad games. But there's simply no necessity for such thing in Fallout.

The problem is that stuff like crippling limbs isn't a viable tactic in most of encounters due to how random the critical hits are. You can't just count on making some amount of damage and crippling it because of it as in GURPS. You need to have a lucky critical hit roll and the highest critical chance is for the eyes.
In BG usually these special options like using some spell or ability are much more reliable.

Most skills and spells in IE aren't reliable at all. Many are virtually useless due to high saving throws or negligent effects they give. Also, 100% chance of working/triggering/whatever isn't really that great when you simply have another spell that is much more efficient than this one and fifty others. Just like in Fallout it's better to crit-kill someone with eye-shot than to shoot his legs/arms. It's the same thing, really.

 

[Twinkle]

@Coyote

I can't deny BG2/IWD2 sport much better variety of spells/monsters/class builds. In fact, any sort of "magic" system is non-existent in FO, thus removing potential added depth. However, all the nice things you're talking about appear as the high-level content. With the exception of BG2, you may as well have completed FO three times by the time you reach them. But what happens at lower levels, esp. in BG1? You either play it as a shitty RTS: throw a spell, and click on stuff and watch it going down or mash pause button in harder encounters. Even the most basic combat sequence available in Fallout, like: move two hexes towards an enemy, change your SMG's firing mode to burst, unload a full clip in his face, reload and move away just can't be executed in IE.

Just like JA destroys FO's combat, even the lowest common denominator RTS like, let's say, DoW2 is superior to round-based Infinity's RtWP. You can as well control multiple squads, move around the map, use items, pick enemies to attack, activate spells/abilities and many additional factors not present in IE at all are calculated, like cover bonus, armor type, rudimentary physics, strength of armor plates on vehicles etc. All of the above without constant pausing crutches.

We probably have different priorities when it comes to combat systems. I prefer more simple stuff which gives me a better control over my character versus crapload of varied spells/classes/equipment that are painful to use.

 

[Xor]

For me, the choice is simple: in Fallout, when you raise your skill high enough, there is no reason not to do eye shots all the time (and even if FO had better encounter design, this would still be an issue). Even before that, there's usually a clearly optimal route based on your equipment and skill levels at any given moment.

And this does not refer to IE games how exactly? Mind flayers - summon Mordekainen sword and wait a few minutes. A group of mob weak enough to be vulnerable to death spell - insta kill all of them with death spell. Hostile adventurer group - web + some cloud, wait a few minutes. Strong, boss-like crature - warrior + whirlwind or lower resistance + magic missile/finger od death. You do the same, optimal things all the time. On one hand, you have to change your approach from time to time, on the other - most of those approaches , as portrayed above, are much more boring and less exciting that eye-shooting mutants in Fallout or melting people with plasma. And those examples are mostly about BG2, really, because in BG and IWD 1-2 the enemies force change of weapons very rarely and the same combinations of few spells are even more powerful.

You just named several different approaches. That's still better than Fallout's one approach. I'll agree that BG doesn't require very much thought compared to BG2, though, until the last fight where you pretty much have to cheese to win because Sarevok has a ridiculous thac0 and strength.

Just as you can use a few hundred different spells or character/item abilities in BG2, you can use different drugs, tinker npc orders, use close range burst weapons, snipe from far away, beat with powerfist, cripple legs to slow meele creatures down, cripple hands to lower accuracy etc.

But you don't need to. Get power armor, a magnum, better criticals, and all the sudden you're one-shotting everything by shooting in the eyes. Sure, you can go for cripples, and that's even a viable strategy before you're high enough level, but that sort of advancement isn't unique to Fallout and is certainly represented in BG and BG2 as well.

It all sounds cool and interesting and you have fun with it when you're on your first playthrough and you have to reload some fights, try new tactics and weapons. But now you simply don't do it, you just know how to kill everything quickly.

Again, this isn't unique to Fallout. How is someone supposed to know every tactical weakness and godly spell in the game on their first playthrough of BG? I'd say it's much easier to game Fallout's combat system. I discovered the extra move perk bug on one of my first playthroughs, and I don't think I've ever not taken better criticals - it's too obviously good even if you don't know exactly what it does.

I don't quite understand why do people have such expectations of F1/2 combat and repeatedly compare it to games that are built around tactical squad fighting. Fallouts are crpg games and ones in which combat isn't really the most important feature (you can actually avoid it almost completely, which is very rare for games that claim to be crpg). Of course the system is far less sophisticated than in X-Com or JA. But it's fun and it works just fine. Props for making it turn based instead of popamole button mashing.

Personally, I don't expect Fallout's combat to compare well with tactical combat games, I'm merely discussing the topic of the thread. As I stated earlier, Fallout's combat is perfect for what it tries to do; it gives the player another option to deal with NPCs, quests, etc. It's another avenue to advance the story and your character.

I'm not deriding Fallout's combat, I'm just saying BG/BG2 had comparatively better combat, and they should; combat is like 90% of the BG games.

 

[ZbojLamignat]

You just named several different approaches. That's still better than Fallout's one approach. I'll agree that BG doesn't require very much thought compared to BG2, though, until the last fight where you pretty much have to cheese to win because Sarevok has a ridiculous thac0 and strength.

Like I said - you get a few different approches that are mostly meh, sometimes very meh (unless you count waiting for mobs to succumb to 2x web + 3x cloud kill as fun and engaging combat). But there are more things to use in IE - that's true.

But you don't need to.

My point exactly. Just like in IE (for example whole meele is mostly useless when you play on highest difficulty level and you use high ac warrior only to aggro enemies).

Again, this isn't unique to Fallout. How is someone supposed to know every tactical weakness and godly spell in the game on their first playthrough of BG? I'd say it's much easier to game Fallout's combat system. I discovered the extra move perk bug on one of my first playthroughs, and I don't think I've ever not taken better criticals - it's too obviously good even if you don't know exactly what it does.

Again - more or less my point. Saying that you only take one approach in Fallout is simply not fair when claimed by experienced gamer - when you know a game very well you always breeze through it with best solutions. When i first played BG II I had tons of problems with many fights, reloaded a lot, tried different approaches and had fun. Now they all seem really simple even on highest difficulty and I find that I don't use some characters and their skills at all.

Oh, a side note - better criticals isn't really a crucial perk when you go for the best builds. It's more of an extra overkill.

I'm not deriding Fallout's combat, I'm just saying BG/BG2 had comparatively better combat, and they should; combat is like 90% of the BG games.

Taking my experience with both games into account - meaning many playthroughs of F1/2 and a couple of IE games - I find Fallout simply more satisfying when playing one more time. I love tb games and ability to stir shit up and start a huge shoot out with guards, hookers, drug dealers and many innocent passers by involved. Also the way you build your character has a visible impact on your combat performance why in IE is mostly the same stuff all the way and most fun comes from finding phat loot after victory.

 

[Coyote]

Not to go all VD, but for this post it seems like the best way to respond.

For me, the choice is simple: in Fallout, when you raise your skill high enough, there is no reason not to do eye shots all the time (and even if FO had better encounter design, this would still be an issue). Even before that, there's usually a clearly optimal route based on your equipment and skill levels at any given moment.

And this does not refer to IE games how exactly? Mind flayers - summon Mordekainen sword and wait a few minutes.

I normally wasn't a high enough level to cast Mordenkainen's Sword when I first encountered mind flayers in BG2. And even if I had been, I'm not sure it would have been my first choice, since I might want to conserve my high-level spells for later encounters, and I might not even have prepared the spell in the first place.* With a balanced party I tended to animate dead and send in whatever warriors I could protect from charms (because the summoned undead wouldn't do the trick on their own) with any available damage boosters to ensure that I give the mind flayers as few chances to hit them as possible.

Naturally, I would use different tactics when playing a party heavier on magic (in which case I might do the Mordenkainen's Sword thing) or melee (in which case I might be forced to take some hits and would therefore buff my warriors with intelligence potions, give charm-resistant equipment to the party members with worse saving throws, use ranged weapons with others in sight of as few mind flayers as possible, and use backstab since my rogue is unlikely to do much damage to my warriors if he happens to be charmed) or a low-level party vs. a high-level party, or if I was out of Animate Dead spells. There isn't any single optimal route, since parties may vary drastically in composition.

A group of mob weak enough to be vulnerable to death spell - insta kill all of them with death spell.

Or just use your warriors and maybe a fireball/confusion to mop up since if they're that weak, they probably won't do very much damage in the first place. Death's too high-level a spell to go wasting on weaklings.*

* It may be that this argument simply comes down to differences in playstyle - I avoid abusing the ability to rest anywhere, and when I do rest in a dungeon, I don't reload if I'm interrupted. Just like in Fallout I avoid abusing stimpacks because it throws whatever tactical depth the game has right out the window. Now, if you don't abuse resting and still manage to always have the right spells prepared for the occasion, I applaud your foresight - but otherwise, you will be forced to vary your methods, and it may not always be clear what the optimal use of your resources is.

Hostile adventurer group - web + some cloud, wait a few minutes. Strong, boss-like crature - warrior + whirlwind or lower resistance + magic missile/finger od death.

If you're lucky enough that they don't make their saves, sure. But if not, then what?

Sometimes I feel like I played a different BG2 than others, because even if I lowered a dragon's magic resistance and saves as much as possible, they still resisted fingers of death/chromatic orbs the majority of the time and frequently used wing buffet and breath attacks, making it difficult for mages to simply recast them until they work (assuming that I've set up my spells for that specific encounter in the first place). IIRC, the ones who could cast spells would sometimes dispel the debuffs, too. You could reload until it works in your favor, but then you're not really playing the game; you're just rigging the dice.

You do the same, optimal things all the time. On one hand, you have to change your approach from time to time, on the other - most of those approaches , as portrayed above, are much more boring and less exciting that eye-shooting mutants in Fallout or melting people with plasma.

Because what, Fallout had better death animations and flavor text? I'll admit that they count for something, but are you really arguing that spamming the same attack over and over is less boring than being forced to change your approach from time to time? If, for example, eye shots weren't always optimal in FO, would that be a bad thing?

Edit:

Taking my experience with both games into account - meaning many playthroughs of F1/2 and a couple of IE games - I find Fallout simply more satisfying when playing one more time. I love tb games and ability to stir shit up and start a huge shoot out with guards, hookers, drug dealers and many innocent passers by involved. Also the way you build your character has a visible impact on your combat performance why in IE is mostly the same stuff all the way and most fun comes from finding phat loot after victory.

In that case, I don't really disagree with you here; I agree about these aspects of the combat being better, just not that FO has greater tactical depth or more options.

I don't quite understand why do people have such expectations of F1/2 combat and repeatedly compare it to games that are built around tactical squad fighting. Fallouts are crpg games and ones in which combat isn't really the most important feature (you can actually avoid it almost completely, which is very rare for games that claim to be crpg). Of course the system is far less sophisticated than in X-Com or JA. But it's fun and it works just fine. Props for making it turn based instead of popamole button mashing.

I don't have such expectations. As you and Xor have said, combat in Fallout was just one of multiple methods for resolving situations. My point was exactly what I said; some games have good turn-based combat that takes full advantage of its tactical potential. Fallout isn't one of them. A turn-based system isn't inherently superior to a real-time system (though it may be to popamole button-mashing); it's only superior if you use it to its potential.

I can't deny BG2/IWD2 sport much better variety of spells/monsters/class builds. In fact, any sort of "magic" system is non-existent in FO, thus removing potential added depth. However, all the nice things you're talking about appear as the high-level content. With the exception of BG2, you may as well have completed FO three times by the time you reach them. But what happens at lower levels, esp. in BG1? You either play it as a shitty RTS: throw a spell, and click on stuff and watch it going down or mash pause button in harder encounters. Even the most basic combat sequence available in Fallout, like: move two hexes towards an enemy, change your SMG's firing mode to burst, unload a full clip in his face, reload and move away just can't be executed in IE.

(A) "With the exception of BG2" - actually, I found that BG1 and Torment were the only IE games where this was the case. You get to the mid-levels pretty quickly in the IWDs, and by that time you have a wide variety of spells and items at your disposal.

(B) You cannot use even the most basic method of attacking in game with combat system x that you can in game with combat system y; news at 11. I might as well say even the most basic combat sequence available in BG2, like casting confusion on a group of enemies with your mage while having your fighters move in to attack and your cleric cast bless, just can't be executed in FO.

Just like JA destroys FO's combat, even the lowest common denominator RTS like, let's say, DoW2 is superior to round-based Infinity's RtWP. You can as well control multiple squads, move around the map, use items, pick enemies to attack, activate spells/abilities and many additional factors not present in IE at all are calculated, like cover bonus, armor type, rudimentary physics, strength of armor plates on vehicles etc. All of the above without constant pausing crutches.

Lovely. But irrelevant to a comparison of FO's combat vs. BG's/IE's combat. (And before anyone says it, again, my point in bringing up JA2 was to illustrate that a turn-based combat system isn't inherently superior to a real-time combat system.)

We probably have different priorities when it comes to combat systems. I prefer more simple stuff which gives me a better control over my character versus crapload of varied spells/classes/equipment that are painful to use.

And obviously I prefer options where I have less control that are painful to use. Better control is, in fact, one of the reasons I prefer the IE party system to FO's. But yes, it is true that I prefer a variety of options at my disposal over simplification as long as none of those options clearly dominate (in which case the system might as well be simplified), since it encourages experimentation and allows you to discover playstyles when replaying it. Which is why it such a good thing that FO has alternative methods of bypassing obstacles than using combat and that BG, being more combat-centric, has multiple methods for dealing with enemies.

I get the sense that you really dislike the frequent need to pause in IE games, which is understandable. Personally, I don't mind it, but on the other hand, I strongly dislike the way combat handles in the NWN games; there's just something about the combination of the camera controls, structure of the right-click menus, etc. that I can't stand. So I get where you're coming from if that's the case. But it's irrelevant to a discussion of the variety of options at your disposal and the tactical depth of the games, which is what I was responding to in your earlier post.

 

[Malraz Alizar]

Which is funnier, a five-minute SNL skit or a ninety-minute SNL movie? What if I told you the movie had more variety?

There has never been a CRPG with combat that could rival a good wargame, even a very basic one like Steel Panthers or Panzer General. The best CRPGs are the ones that recognize this, and try to minimize the amount of time you spend fighting battles which are of no significance to either your character's story (Fallout) or the strategic metagame of exploration and resource management (Roguelikes).

The fact that Fallout lets me shoot a guy in the balls, in an immediate and satisfying way that doesn't completely break the game or the logic of the setting, without forcing me to wade through hours of tedious sub-Command & Conquer level pseudo-tactical bullshit, immediately puts it one-up on the VAST majority of fantasy adventure titles.