Divinity Divinity: Original Sin has the best CRPG combat system of all time

[luj1]

I wouldn't say the best, but it's definitely top 3 with JA2 and Underrail.

Underrail has superb combat too. Anyway, a bunch of games boast better combat than puny DOS - threads such as these should be eradicated on sight. Topic title gave me cancer.

 

[barghwata]

Gunshit is boring and unfun compared to D&D fantasy setting.

Begone storyfag, this is a thread about combat systems not settings.

It's because RTwP and Vancian magic both suck.

Indeed vancian magic sucks, but RTwP combat gets unfair treatement around here, i mean yea it's mostly shit but i think it can be really good if executed correctly and High Calibre 7.62 is proof of that, i think it's mostly the combination of D&D with RTwP that just never really works.

 

[Valky]

Gunshit is boring and unfun compared to D&D fantasy setting.

Begone storyfag, this is a thread about combat systems not settings.

It's because RTwP and Vancian magic both suck.

Indeed vancian magic sucks, but RTwP combat gets unfair treatement around here, i mean yea it's mostly shit but i think it can be really good if executed correctly and High Calibre 7.62 is proof of that, i think it's mostly the combination of D&D with RTwP that just never really works.

Listen here you cuck setting and story are entirely separate things and you can see me attacking story for being one of the things killing video games in many other posts I've made. If you even played ToEE you would know that it has basically no story and exists as a 3.5 ruleset simulation. Considering you think RTWP is good I'll take your trash opinion with a grain of salt.

 

[luj1]

Not like Nano T knows what he's talking about. Vancian = good.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

I enjoyed combat in the game. It was ridiculously fun to blow stuff up and have all that elemental reactivity going on. It was especially satisfying to trigger a massive chain reaction for huge damage, like blowing up poison clouds and the like. I should play the sequel sometime, the first game I completed in couch co-op.

 

[barghwata]

If you even played ToEE you would know that it has basically no story and exists as a 3.5 ruleset simulation.

I did play it; if your point was that combat systems that follow the D&D ruleset are the best you either haven't played JA2 or just have shit taste.

Considering you think RTWP is good I'll take your trash opinion with a grain of salt.

Nah i still think it's mostly shit, High calibre 7.62 is the only exception i know of.

 

[Lilura]

Not like Nano T knows what he's talking about. Vancian = good.

Indeed. Behead, dismember and quarter anyone who insults the Vancian magic system.

 

[Nano]

Indeed. Behead, dismember and quarter anyone who insults the Vancian magic system.

Posting death threats to people who disagree with you. Classy, Lilura.

 

[Fairfax]

Not like Nano T knows what he's talking about. Vancian = good.

Indeed. Behead, dismember and quarter anyone who insults the Vancian magic system.

Yes, 5th Edition employs the Vancian magic system. In their 5th Edition Player's Handbook (Chapter 10), Wizards of the Coast don't specifically refer to their spellcasting mechanics as Vancian, but that's what they are.

You don't seem to know what it is, though.

 

[Lilura]

You don't seem to know what it is, though.

I know enough.

 

[Valky]

Oh shit dis nibba just linked to a blog post.

 

[Fairfax]

You don't seem to know what it is, though.

I know enough.

I've read that post, it's good. However, 5E's system is definitely not Vancian.

 

[biggestboss]

I'm not as knowledgeable as I'd like to be about this particular subject, so now it's time to google furiously.

https://dungeonsdragons.fandom.com/wiki/Vancian_magic_system

Post-Vancian casting systems

Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition abandoned the Vancian magic system. The core spellcasting classes in this edition cast spells which can be cast with a frequency defined as one of at-will, encounter, or daily. This system somewhat resembles the "cooldown timer" system used in videogame RPGs of the time.

Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition introduced a more flexible derivative of the Vancian system. Spellcasting characters prepare spells each day, but may spontaneously cast those, up to a limit of a certain number of each spell level per day. This system strikes a balance between Vancian and spontaneous casting.

https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Vancian_Casting

5th edition dialed back from 4th, but maintained the end of Vancian Casting; now, effectively caster functioned akin to the spontaneous casters of 3e, with the addendum of cantrip spells which could be cast at-will. The only semblance of Vancian Casting that remains is that the wizard maintains its 4e Spellbook feature, which allows it to change out the spells in its "spell pool" as part of an extended rest. This gives them a greater amount of versatility that almost any other spellcasting class in the edition.

This has been a skubby development, with grognards hating on it and modern audiences loving it. Although even fans of the 5e style will admit that it has made the sorcerer into a poor man's wizard due to bad design choices - namely, the fact the sorcerer, previously designed as the "flexible arcanist", had no game mechanics to allow for quick and easy spell-slot recovery. Oh, it can "convert" spell points into spell-slots, but it has a very small pool of spell-points and it only regains those after an 8-hour "long rest". In comparison, the wizard can automatically regain a certain amount of low-level spell slots on a hour-long short rest.

 

[Lilura]

You don't seem to know what it is, though.

I know enough.

I've read that post, it's good. However, 5E's system is definitely not Vancian.

I cleared up what I meant in that citation, which you cherry-picked. It's fraudulent to say I don't know what VMS is when I covered it in that link.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Wasn't D:OS combat just basically all about who got the cc going first? You could lock down every enemy and take them out at ease. Which is why they changed the system for D:OS2 (however you may feel about their changes). A couple of mages with cc could make most fights trivial.

Melee was pretty boring as well, no interesting abilities, so really the only novel or interesting part was about combining elemental effects, but I dunno, for me this got old quickly, and also didn't feel great from a coolness perspective (casting Finger of Death in DnD feels cool, you are a bad-ass mage, throwing a spark into a gas cloud, meh).

Finally, the overhead from retardedly slow and long animations just killed the system. There were fights were the AI would just not be able to find pathfinding or decided what to do next, and stand there for tens of seconds, doing nothing. Turn after turn, AI after AI.

 

[Lilura]

Your list has 11 games, counting IWD/IWD2 as one for that stat is disingenuous.

Damn me for grouping IWD and IWD2 together. My top 10 is biased and I have an agenda. Fancy that: a commentator with an agenda. Who the fuck would've thunk it? It's never been seen before, even in the mainstream... everyone is objective, except me.

And Arcanum counts for both RT and TB

I know what Arcanum is. I play it in TB mode, with guns. I don't need to be informed by you or anyone about Arcanum.

 

[Fairfax]

You don't seem to know what it is, though.

I know enough.

I've read that post, it's good. However, 5E's system is definitely not Vancian.

I cleared up what I meant in that citation, which you cherry-picked. It's fraudulent to say I don't know what VMS is when I covered it in that link.

I wasn't actually suggesting you don't know what it is or how it works. However, regardless of what you meant, that definition was wrong and could mislead your readers.

Damn me for grouping IWD and IWD2 together. My top 10 is biased and I have an agenda. Fancy that: a commentator with an agenda. Who the fuck would've thunk it? It's never been seen before, even in the mainstream... everyone is objective, except me.

Grouping them in your ranking is fine, but doing so to make that statistic up was disingenuous, and you're better than that.

 

[JDR13]

This thread is like the ultimate nerd battle royal.

 

[Lilura]

I wasn't actually suggesting you don't know what it is or how it works. However, regardless of what you meant, that definition was wrong and could mislead your readers.

All right. Fixed. It's never my intent to mislead.

Grouping them in your ranking is fine, but doing so to make that statistic up was disingenuous, and you're better than that.

Meh, such a little thing. I'm not worried about the ratio of TB-RT/RTwP, anyway.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

This thread is like the ultimate nerd battle royal.

Better this than another thread about a Snoy exclusive game.

 

[Darth Roxor]

the op has a funny way of misspelling 'wizardry 8'

 

[Roguey]

I play it in TB mode, with guns

Going with guns is rather masochistic. Animations on or off?

 

[DJOGamer PT]

the op has a funny way of misspelling 'wizardry 8'

That's an interesting way to say 'Battle Brothers'.

 

[CryptRat]

The combat part of Divinity : Original Sin is indeed great, and I loved the game. The first reason why I would not consider it a single only best is that, like Blackguards, KoTC, Voidspire Tactics, Dungeon Rats and probably some other recent games that I loved too, the game is overall built over small scale battles while I tend to prefer games which can support a lot of fun 8 vs 40 battles (the Gold Box games + Natuk, Disciples of steel and a couple more, basically). The second reason is that the character system, balance and overall reliance on degenerate gameplay is very fun too but I think that I tend to like very balanced stuff ala KoTC even more, maybe partly because it makes the full game challenging instead of only the first half (which once again is still fun, nothing wrong with a game where you spend the first half discovering how to nuke the second one once in a while).

 

[Zibniyat]

DOS also has terrible writing (albeit self-aware terrible, not that it excuses it), complete with awful characters. Those are 2 reasons enough for someone like me to not play it (and I tried). Combat was fun. Writing and characters were disgusting. End result? NOT fun.