Except for what turned out to be a really good game with a really solid rpg ruleset behind it, and one of the best infinity-engine-like games to come out in a very long time? That is far from nothing.
I disagree
If you play deadfire you discover that the game isn't perfectly balanced at all, and that you can make some extremely powerful builds and find some extremely powerful gear (and conversely, you can make some extremely poor builds and use some extremely crappy unique quality gear). People are really hung up on Sawyer being "balanced" but the only thing he really did, was to remove the ability for extremely obvious min-maxing and extremely obvious overpowered builds. If every build was perfectly symmetrical and every item was just as good as the other, I would agree the balance and symmetry would ruin the game, but that is not the case in practice.
The proper bar to set is BG2, and I would argue that in many important aspects deadfire lives up to that legacy. One of my best memories from BG2 was exploring the city of athkatla and the sense of wonder as you discovere more layers beneath it. Deadfire replicated this sense of wonder in me with Nekataka in its own original way. I thought exploring the ruins under nekataka leading to the pirate smuggling cove was fantastic. Also the bits about Ukaizo which popped up everywhere, on walls off the beaten path, in the main quests, in many, many side quests, and even in areas where you would never find but through explanation, instilled in me a sense of wonder and excitement about the prospects of me maybe finding it.
Well, to be honest he did say that he's fully responsible for the narrative being disappointing, for the fact the game was way too easy at release and other stuff as well.
No? An infinity-engire-like game is never going to sell like call of duty or like gears of war.
The problem with the original was that it created no strong feeling, one way or the other.
This is not as simple as one might assume. They would have needed to create a full set encounters for each combat mode; possibly with different stats for the NPCs.
Not in mine.
Not in mine.
One of the core differences between real time combat and turn based combat is that the turn based player is given full access to the situation and allowed to reflect upon it. They see what the PC would see, and they can pick from among the PC's options, then indicate (ideally the best) course of action for the PC(s) to attempt. And then the PC will execute the action to the best of their own personal ability. This allows for characters who are far greater [or lesser!] skilled than the player is, at performing the tasks at hand.
This prevents an expert marksman character from being handicapped by a player who can't aim under pressure—or at all. This prevents nonsense like Geralt in Witcher 2 getting beat up by villagers when he's an experienced warrior accustomed to fighting trolls and mobs of lesser enemies; Geralt would know how to handle himself in a fight.... puppet Geralt swings his sword at trees and barrels until the player improves a bit—but even then they might never play with the skill that Geralt is assumed to have.
In turn based game like Fallout, it is the PC aiming the shot with the PC's on competence determining the outcome. In FO3, it player dictates the outcome for the PC; be they expert, or totally inept.
*Note that this is a core difference, but there are realtime games that afford PC skill... Like Witcher 1, and even Baldur's Gate, but the point of the differing encounter design is that the player will —never— be as informed, nor behave as comfortably as the PC. Turn based combat allows for scenes like this:
*They also tend to prevent a player pulling that off with an unskilled PC; which of course they shouldn't be able to do in RPG.
I think it should matter the character in play—not every character should lose that fight. But the main issue is that TB is an abstraction that lays out the event moment by moment —necessarily linear— such that it's not strictly concurrent events... even though that's what it represents. In practice it is consecutive events... and you'll see things like the PC running away before the opponents can fire a shot. This wouldn't happen in a realtime or RTwP system; the encounters need to be different. In Fallout (for instance), the player can use explosive to drop (or knock down) several enemies at once... These enemies might never have been close enough together to target all of them at once, save for them winding up in proximity due to ending their turns. (This is Fallout specific... There are TB games where out of turn actions occur; these are often (but not always) automatic, and can effectively offer two turns for the opponent, due to the targeted character's actions)... In Druidstone for instance, the combatants usually get attacks of opportunity when their opponents step past them instead of engaging them. The point is that the encounters are not necessarily of comparable threat—depending on which mechanics are used.
One of the differences is that in a turn based game, the player has full knowledge of the actions that precede their action before making their choice. RTwP games don't especially adhere to this. Characters in the Infinity games do have internalized combat rounds—so it's technically them acting out when their turn comes, but the player has no idea when (or in what order) their actions will occur. RTwP only works to speed up the frequency of issuing orders. In a turn based game, the player can see the results of their actions before the next combatant acts; and has seen all actions up to the point when they decide on their own.
