RPGs with the best combat systems

[Black Reaper]

Tales games in general,especially Vesperia and Graces
A combo video speaks better than a thousand words

YMMV on which is better,Vesperia has Judith,and doesn't have that stupid accuracy system Graces had(if you don't have a high accuracy,your attacks won't stagger enemies with high evasion),Graces has the awesome quick step system(you can quickly dash in a direction by blocking and moving your stick where you want to go,or just press your stick twice real fast,if an enemy attacks you while you are doing this,you will get some CC and you will nullify all damage,even healing it if you have the right skills,this might seem broken,but it isn't),and the CC system(you can chain attacks as long as you have CC,it quickly regenerates when you are not attacking)

 

[The Madman]

I am not trying to understate Baldurs Gate complexity. I'm trying to say they are pretty equal.

Don't mean to be rude jumping into something mid-debate, but I wanted to chime in on the whole BG vs. Dragon Age thing seeing as awhile back I made this:


And honestly playing both the BG series and DA back to back, Baldur's Gate is far more complex when it comes to combat and the main reason isn't just the volume of classes and abilities, but also the need for preparation.

In Dragon Age Origins you're almost always prepared for every encounter, the only time you wouldn't be is if you were running out of supplies. But every ability and skill is always accessible to the player at all times. By contrast BG requires a level of foresight for encounters. Casters need to actively choose which spells to have available and need to have been able to rest in order to use those spells, which they often can but not always. Similarly BG especially when you get into the second game and the higher levels, requires more foresight in spells and abilities prepared because of the sheer diversity of your enemies. In DA the same basic strategy will work for every encounter with a minimum of fuss. Enemies have different abilities and strengths but in terms of combat are generally functionally the same. In Baldur's Gate however trying the same strategy that will work against bandits will be useless against golems, and tactics useful against Mindflayers will not work against Beholders. You need to change up your strategy and you need to have planned in advance in order to survive. You need to have had not only the foresight to have the proper spells prepared but to know when you should be getting ready to enter combat. A mage in Baldur's Gate is near helpless if caught unprepared, even the most high level ones. But a mage prepared for combat with the proper spells prepared is easily the most terrifying enemy in the game.

And that's the major difference between BG's combat and that of DA. DA works and is entertaining because it uses the ol' class trifecta: Tank, Healer, DPS. Then you've got your crowd control and your basic support characters to mix things up. Baldur's Gate also uses that but only to a certain degree as an encounter which might work perfectly with that combination of tanking and damage dealing simply wont work in other situations, forcing the player to improvise and try new strategy. It's the diversity not just of spells, classes and abilities but of enemies that helps make BG's combat more interesting, as is the need for foresight and preparation.

Dragon Age: Origins as well as Awakening are both great fun, I've probably played through them at least four times now. But in terms of tactical gameplay and combat I have to agree with the others in saying Baldur's Gate, despite using the old 2nd Edition DnD ruleset (Which truthfully isn't that great. My favourite is 3.5 still!) is just a richer and more rewarding experience. Generally speaking that is, obviously personal tastes will have a lot to do with it.

 

[A Weakgeek]

On the topic of DA:O magic: Yeah it was powerful, but for all the wrong reasons, and probably not intentional.

I dont know, those statements sound odd. You really think they did not intend the magic to be powerfull? And what are wrong reasons?

The wrong reasons would be the fact that it breaks the game. It doesn't deal incredible amounts of damage or anything like that, but it simply makes the enemy unable to retaliate. When you combine dumb AI with huge AOE spells that Freeze, knock people prone etc, and can cast it as much as you want, stunlocking the enemy. Its not about tactics anymore, its about running backwards and spamming the same 4 spells with 3 mages. Worse are the indoor areas, where you can cast these spells into other rooms you've yet to visit, clearing them before the enemy even sees you.

If you had to spam your spells so much I still think you skilled your casters "wrong". In DA:O you could wreck a whole room of standard mobs by casting one or two high level spells, just like in Baldurs Gate.

It's not that you "have to" but its the optimal strategy, its what I used to get through the game when I just wanted to see the end of the story.

Even if not, whats the big tactical difference or difference in depth between casting one mighty spell or having to cast three not so mighty ones?.

First of all, for me personally, its not mainly about the tactical difference, but more about the "feel" of the magic, because when you use your only lvl 5 spell it has signifigance, you won't be casting it again in a while, and you can't be sure whats coming ahead. And even when you're highlevel in Baldurs gate you wont be casting 15 spells during a single combat, not without scrolls anyhow.

just rest between encounters they rarely run out of spells in combat

First of all, I can't blame you for doing this, as theres no punishment for it ingame. But it really makes no sense to spam rest, and you could never get away with sleeping on the dungeon floor after every encounter in a real D&D session (Which the rules are based on). Spamming rest WILL make BG more like modern games in that respect, and will lessen my point. Its up to the player to do it though.

Then you said DA:O magic is overpowerd because of the spammability, but wouldnt that only be an issue if the spells are very powerfull and can be cast to often?

Ok. Powerfull was probably the wrong word, thats bad communication on my part. Signifigance might be more like it. My point was, that in DA:O magic is OP, plain and simple. But theres no weight to these spells, because you're throwing arena sized (which arent that big in DA:O, they could really have broadened the enviroments) stunlocks every 15 seconds, with 3 different characters.

EVEN IF you spammed rest after every encounter in BG, you couldnt use your Cone of Cold (Which was a lvl5 spell) more than once, MAYBE twice per combat per character. In DA:O, you can use Blizzard ATLEAST every 60 seconds, which is only 30 after it has ended, which is only ONE of the huge stunning AOEs of ONE of your characters. There is no weight in spellcasting, when even the most powerfull spells you have are so spammable. Never once did the thought "Should I use this spell now?" cross my mind when playing DA:O, because in max 60 seconds I would have the spell back. (Which you could very easily just spend running around in circles, since all enemies have the same movement speed as you, and you have a plethora of lesser stuns available)

EDIT: I also forgot this

Casters need to actively choose which spells to have available

 

[Chris Tian]

On the topic of DA:O magic: Yeah it was powerful, but for all the wrong reasons, and probably not intentional.

I dont know, those statements sound odd. You really think they did not intend the magic to be powerfull? And what are wrong reasons?

The wrong reasons would be the fact that it breaks the game. It doesn't deal incredible amounts of damage or anything like that, but it simply makes the enemy unable to retaliate. When you combine dumb AI with huge AOE spells that Freeze, knock people prone etc, and can cast it as much as you want, stunlocking the enemy. Its not about tactics anymore, its about running backwards and spamming the same 4 spells with 3 mages. Worse are the indoor areas, where you can cast these spells into other rooms you've yet to visit, clearing them before the enemy even sees you.

Baldurs Gate had dumb AI and huge AOE spells too, in fact AI is really a very big word for the mooks in BG.

You could just run through Baldurs Gate with 6 auto attack machines with different elemental weapons, if you want it even easier stack up on potions and scrolls.

The implication that Baldurs Gate needed more tactic or was harder is just not true. Or better, its not universaly true, I found Baldurs Gate to be not in the slightest harder or more tactical challanging and it had equally many ways to "break it"

If you had to spam your spells so much I still think you skilled your casters "wrong". In DA:O you could wreck a whole room of standard mobs by casting one or two high level spells, just like in Baldurs Gate.

It's not that you "have to" but its the optimal strategy, its what I used to get through the game when I just wanted to see the end of the story.

Not in my expirence, on NM the mobs are not as vulnerable to freeze an stun and whatever, having to cast your spells so many times would take time in wich they dish out damage.

First of all, I can't blame you for doing this, as theres no punishment for it ingame. But it really makes no sense to spam rest, and you could never get away with sleeping on the dungeon floor after every encounter in a real D&D session (Which the rules are based on). Spamming rest WILL make BG more like modern games in that respect, and will lessen my point. Its up to the player to do it though.

Honestly, meta-gaming is hardly an argument, nobody forces you to spam yur casts in DA:O or kite your enemies either.

First of all, for me personally, its not mainly about the tactical difference, but more about the "feel" of the magic, because when you use your only lvl 5 spell it has signifigance, you won't be casting it again in a while, and you can't be sure whats coming ahead. And even when you're highlevel in Baldurs gate you wont be casting 15 spells during a single combat, not without scrolls anyhow.

Ok. Powerfull was probably the wrong word, thats bad communication on my part. Signifigance might be more like it. My point was, that in DA:O magic is OP, plain and simple. But theres no weight to these spells, because you're throwing arena sized (which arent that big in DA:O, they could really have broadened the enviroments) stunlocks every 15 seconds, with 3 different characters.

You said it yourself: "for me personally, its not mainly about the tactical difference, but more about the "feel" of the magic" Thats basically the point I'm trying to make the whole time, the real distinction between the games is not about tactical depth or complexity but personal preference.

I am not trying to understate Baldurs Gate complexity. I'm trying to say they are pretty equal.

Don't mean to be rude jumping into something mid-debate, but I wanted to chime in on the whole BG vs. Dragon Age thing seeing as awhile back I made this:


And honestly playing both the BG series and DA back to back, Baldur's Gate is far more complex when it comes to combat and the main reason isn't just the volume of classes and abilities, but also the need for preparation.

In Dragon Age Origins you're almost always prepared for every encounter, the only time you wouldn't be is if you were running out of supplies. But every ability and skill is always accessible to the player at all times. By contrast BG requires a level of foresight for encounters. Casters need to actively choose which spells to have available and need to have been able to rest in order to use those spells, which they often can but not always. Similarly BG especially when you get into the second game and the higher levels, requires more foresight in spells and abilities prepared because of the sheer diversity of your enemies. In DA the same basic strategy will work for every encounter with a minimum of fuss. Enemies have different abilities and strengths but in terms of combat are generally functionally the same. In Baldur's Gate however trying the same strategy that will work against bandits will be useless against golems, and tactics useful against Mindflayers will not work against Beholders. You need to change up your strategy and you need to have planned in advance in order to survive. You need to have had not only the foresight to have the proper spells prepared but to know when you should be getting ready to enter combat. A mage in Baldur's Gate is near helpless if caught unprepared, even the most high level ones. But a mage prepared for combat with the proper spells prepared is easily the most terrifying enemy in the game.

I grant you the preperation of spells, that is a aspect DA:O has not, but instead you have to compose your party way more carefully. Like I stated before, there is not nearly that much need for that in Baldurs Gate.
You have to change your approach for different encounters in DA:O too, at least on the higher difficulties. While the basic strategy, namely using six auto-attack machines, while having different elemental weapons ready, totaly works for every encounter in Baldurs Gate.
So there are differnences, but not really differences in levels of complexity.

And that's the major difference between BG's combat and that of DA. DA works and is entertaining because it uses the ol' class trifecta: Tank, Healer, DPS. Then you've got your crowd control and your basic support characters to mix things up. Baldur's Gate also uses that but only to a certain degree as an encounter which might work perfectly with that combination of tanking and damage dealing simply wont work in other situations, forcing the player to improvise and try new strategy.

It's the diversity not just of spells, classes and abilities but of enemies that helps make BG's combat more interesting, as is the need for foresight and preparation.

Like I stated earlier, Baldurs Gate has nowhere near as much need for tactical diversity as you say.

I argued in posts above that you can recreate almost every class in DA:O and that just because two classes have different names doesn't mean they really play that different.

Thats the same thing with alot of the spells in BG, they are just stronger or different colored versions of another.

Dragon Age: Origins as well as Awakening are both great fun, I've probably played through them at least four times now. But in terms of tactical gameplay and combat I have to agree with the others in saying Baldur's Gate, despite using the old 2nd Edition DnD ruleset (Which truthfully isn't that great. My favourite is 3.5 still!) is just a richer and more rewarding experience. Generally speaking that is, obviously personal tastes will have a lot to do with it.

My point is again the same as above. What most people mean is "I like Baldurs Gate more", but for some reason they feel compelled to justify that by saying that Baldurs Gate is far more challenging and complex etc. etc.
I'm just trying to say that's not universally true.

 

[The Madman]

I grant you the preperation of spells, that is a aspect DA:O has not, but instead you have to compose your party way more carefully. Like I stated before, there is not nearly that much need for that in Baldurs Gate.
You have to change your approach for different encounters in DA:O too, at least on the higher difficulties. While the basic strategy, namely using six auto-attack machines, while having different elemental weapons ready, totaly works for every encounter in Baldurs Gate.
So there are differnences, but not really differences in levels of complexity.

No it wont.

Try sending a group of pure melee classes into battle against vampires, they'll be level drained and slaughtered within seconds. Try sending them against high level mages and all they'll accomplish is flailing wildly before being butchered. Try sending them against demilich, which are pretty much immune to all but the absolute best melee weapons of which there aren't even enough of in BG2 to equip a full group. Mind Flayers will literally eat a group of melee characters brains before you can kill them all, that's why the trick is to use summoned undead or elementals to beat them.

You're grossly oversimplifying BG's combat, which I dislike. Look at the video I posted, I've played both games multiple times on the highest difficulty. You are wrong in this regard. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but it's true. Unless you're playing on the absolute lowest difficulty with the absolute most overpowered characters you simply can't do in BG what you're saying you can, in which case I might as well be saying Dragon Age: Origins is so easy I don't even have to use abilities since now we're apparently judging games based on their easiest possible settings.

There's the Kensai/Mage combo, which is powerful enough a canny player can beat Baldur's Gate solo with it, but even then you're relying on building a character up perfectly and knowing the in's and out's of every encounter so you can prepare the right spells beforehand. That's also not just a melee class or, as mentioned above, he'd be level-drained/magically incinerated/imprisoned/and then have his brains eaten before he can even react.

Meanwhile what encounters in DA:O have you switching up your tactics? Because honestly having Shale/Alistair taunt and pull the enemies, then having Morrigan/Wynne freeze them with Cone of Cold while everyone else just deals damage works on every single encounter save solo boss fights. Crushing Prison the mages, freeze the melee, rinse, repeat, be sure to heal tank when needed and Bam, done. We just beat the game!

As mentioned Origins uses the tried and true MMO style tank/healer/dps combo. Anyone familiar with that sort of gameplay will instantly be at home with DA's combat. Heck, I even found it quite refreshing as it's not necessarily a bad thing by any stretch.

Taunt, CC, DPS, Heal, Repeat!

Like I stated earlier, Baldurs Gate has nowhere near as much need for tactical diversity as you say.

I argued in posts above that you can recreate almost every class in DA:O and that just because two classes have different names doesn't mean they really play that different.

Thats the same thing with alot of the spells in BG, they are just stronger or different colored versions of another.

Fighting a mage in BG requires at least a few spells to break through their spell defences. Spell breach, Pierce magic, Kheldon's Whip, etc. You'll also need spells to make your own mage similarly defended. Globe of invulnerability, Stoneskin, Shield and so on. Then you have utility spells like Knock, Oracle or Chain Contingency, summoning spells that can summon a whole variety of allies useful in different situations, group effect spells, curses, and crowd control spells like Sleep or Hold. THEN you have damage spells, most of which deal different types of damage in a variety of different ways that make them more or less useful given the situation.

For example Disintegration despite having a badass name isn't much use against high level monsters that can shrug off the magic, but against a mage who's spell defence you stripped away using the spells mentioned above it has a good chance of killing them instantly simply because they're not physically adept enough to resist it without their magical aid. Meanwhile Magic Missile despite being a 1st level spell remains consistently useful because each 'missile' has its own saving throw to have to resist, meaning a swarm of magic missiles will almost assuredly do at least 'some' damage where a higher level spell like Fireball might simply be shrugged off without having done any at all.

And you've got to balance and plan all this out in advance, since there's no way you can have everything memorized all the time... unless you're a filthy sorcerer. And even those degenerates have their limits! Pshaw. No good mage wannabes!

Anyway there is a LOT of complexity to DnD magic and Baldur's Gate which again you're deliberately underplaying. I don't even know why either, it's not like anyone is insulting Dragon Age.

My point is again the same as above. What most people mean is "I like Baldurs Gate more", but for some reason they feel compelled to justify that by saying that Baldurs Gate is far more challenging and complex etc. etc.
I'm just trying to say that's not universally true.

Baldur's Gate is more challenging and complex in a whole range of ways however, I think the people who are debating you such as myself are only confused because you seem to want to dismiss much of the good about BG while simultaneously ignoring DA's own many, many faults.

Again you can't say I haven't played both games a lot, and I definitely enjoy both. But simply put Baldur's Gate IS more complex. It DOES have more in-depth combat. It IS more tactical in a whole variety of ways. This is simple fact and it doesn't make Origins a lesser game. Origins isn't even trying to be as complex at BG, it's streamlined, it cuts away the fat and gets straight to the very basic core mechanics. And that's fine, a lot of people prefer that even over BG's bloated complexity and myriad of underlying rulesets. Hell 2nd Edition DnD is sometimes a pain, I don't blame people who prefer DA's streamlines approach at all.

It's not a bad thing.

I also want to point out that in this topic I didn't say BG's combat was my favourite rpg combat, because it isn't despite all my defending it here. I can see all sorts of flaws with the Infinity Engine and its gameplay, and 2nd edition DnD wasn't exactly the best either. Honestly I just jumped in because I felt you weren't being very fair to the BG games in your posts.

 

[AuronFtw]

Baldurs Gate had dumb AI and huge AOE spells too, in fact AI is really a very big word for the mooks in BG.

You could just run through Baldurs Gate with 6 auto attack machines with different elemental weapons, if you want it even easier stack up on potions and scrolls.

Er... no. No, you could not. A *single* lich, a *single* red dragon, a tiny group of mindflayers, a pack of vampires - they would tear you apart in a heartbeat. Yes, you can autoattack your way past bandits and kobolds - but that tactic stops working as soon as you enter a real fight against a real enemy. Please stop misrepresenting Baldur's Gate here. We've played both games. Trying to autoattack your way through Bodhi's lair (to name a single area) is suicide.

The implication that Baldurs Gate needed more tactic or was harder is just not true. Or better, its not universaly true, I found Baldurs Gate to be not in the slightest harder or more tactical challanging and it had equally many ways to "break it"

Baldur's Gate had more ways to break it, actually, because it was more complex and had more classes to choose from. But that's just it - you had to prepare for a fight and put actual thought into your tactics before the battle even began, or you'd die in two seconds. The hardest fights require several rounds of buffing - bless, chant, resistance to evil, resistance to fear, ironskin, mage defensive buffs, potions of clarity and freedom quaffed - and *then* you start the battle and have to micromanage each individual member's spells, movements and targets. In Dragon Age, I prepared for all of like... 1 fight? The rest I just kind of waded into without any preparation at all, moved out of aoe attacks, and won. That is not tactically equal to Baldur's Gate. Not by a longshot.

You said it yourself: "for me personally, its not mainly about the tactical difference, but more about the "feel" of the magic" Thats basically the point I'm trying to make the whole time, the real distinction between the games is not about tactical depth or complexity but personal preference.

Er, no, there's a difference in personal preference and there's also a difference in tactical depth and complexity. A huge one. As in, Dragon Age is not nearly as tactically deep or complex, for a number of reasons, which we've covered here and you've ignored/understated/strawmanned.

DA:O on its hardest setting is leagues easier to play + less demanding tactically than the hardest mode in BG, and a lot of it is because BG requires far more pre-planning - both in the long term (class selection) and short term (spell preparation, what potions or scrolls you have available, managing the daily-use spells, etc). In addition, every hard fight in BG/2 required micromanaging every unit in your team. You couldn't just leave them on autofire/autocast and even HOPE to win the fight, they'd be slaughtered in 1 round. You had to keep your thief safe but still close enough to be able to strike when needed, you had to make sure your Called Shots or similar abilities were up while your fighters were attacking priority targets, you had to choose every spell individually, often changing your mind on what you need to cast based on how the fight is going for the other members, making decisions on classes like druids or rangers in terms of shape-shifting or equipping melee gear and changing their entire fighting style based on the flow of combat... I mean... in DA:O, I micromanaged my own character (a mage) and that was all I ever needed. As long as I personally kited, my AI party members spamming taunt was enough to clear even High Dragon with minimal effort (will admit though, that fight took 3 tries, but when I micro'd each person to not group hug constantly the dragon just died).

Again, a lot about these games is personal preference. I "enjoyed" playing both. Neither one chased me away or caused me to quit playing. But looking back on both of them, Baldur's Gate 1/2 are clearly more complex and required far more thought (both before combat and during) to get through every hard encounter. For the record, BG1 was much easier than 2 - I found myself autoattacking with slings and darts on casters in lieu of actually wasting spells in early fights, and got through most of it just fine. But pretty much the entire last third of BG1, in the hardest setting, any weapon below +2 had no chance of damaging a foe, let alone enough to kill it before it killed you. And BG2 only got harder from there.

I grant you the preperation of spells, that is a aspect DA:O has not, but instead you have to compose your party way more carefully.

Er... no, that's wrong. You have to compose your party as carefully as you did in Baldur's Gate. No less, and certainly no more. Going into BG2's hardest fights with a random class mix spelled certain doom before you even got to the lich's chamber, because no amount of micromanaging a party of 6 swashbucklers was going to cut it. BG's class list is larger and more diverse than DA's (and no, trying to pretend paladins are like fighters is a fallacy neither of us actually believes), so if anything, BG's variety made its class selection more thought-provoking than DA's. Again, though, this is merely the pre-planning - I'm willing to call it equal here. But don't try to lie and say DA requires "way more careful" class selection, cos that's just bollocks.

You have to change your approach for different encounters in DA:O too, at least on the higher difficulties.

You change them far less frequently, and in far fewer ways, and nearly all of them can be changed on the fly as situations arise - like my High Dragon example. That's one of the hardest fights in the game (for my party setup, anyway), and I beat it without changing my "strat" so much as making sure my downs baby AI party members didn't stand in the fire. Without serious pre-battle prep, the Lich in the Sewers in BG2 is an impossible fight, and no amount of changing where my warrior or thief stands will make it beatable.

While the basic strategy, namely using six auto-attack machines, while having different elemental weapons ready, totaly works for every encounter in Baldurs Gate.

Yes, it works on the lowest difficulty setting in BG1 just like it works for the lowest difficulty setting in Dragon Age. For the record though, it doesn't even work for the lowest difficult setting in BG2 - the mind flayers will still eat your brains if you try to have 6 people autoattacking.

And that's the major difference between BG's combat and that of DA. DA works and is entertaining because it uses the ol' class trifecta: Tank, Healer, DPS. Then you've got your crowd control and your basic support characters to mix things up. Baldur's Gate also uses that but only to a certain degree as an encounter which might work perfectly with that combination of tanking and damage dealing simply wont work in other situations, forcing the player to improvise and try new strategy.

It's the diversity not just of spells, classes and abilities but of enemies that helps make BG's combat more interesting, as is the need for foresight and preparation.

Like I stated earlier, Baldurs Gate has nowhere near as much need for tactical diversity as you say.

Yes, yes it does. Stop playing it on easy, and make sure you're playing BG2. BG1 was just kind of an intro. If you've ever fought the red dragon, beholders, rooms full of umber hulks, caves full of vampires, or a lich, you'd know that "tactical diversity" is required for each fight. Each one has different things to watch out for. They don't all breathe fire. They don't all drain levels. They don't all mind control. They don't all stop time. But the individual ones do, and you have to be prepared for it before going in or you get slaughtered in seconds. No single tactic works for all of those fights - you have to have a different one for each. That's precisely what tactical diversity IS, and what DA lacks in even its hardest fights. The most I changed in DA was where my people stood. Once they stopped group hugging in the middle of a dragon's breath attack, or rogue stopped standing next to where a bunch of adds popped out of, or warrior stopped getting stuck behind a table and unable to move, the fight just ended. I never had to manually activate a party ability aside from taunt - and that was rare, since the AI used it pretty well on its own. I was able to manage my own snares, healing, buffs and damage spells and get my party through every encounter. Microing movement alone does not make Dragon Age as complex as BG, since BG requires that in addition to skills in addition to pre-battle planning.

I argued in posts above that you can recreate almost every class in DA:O and that just because two classes have different names doesn't mean they really play that different.

Thats the same thing with alot of the spells in BG, they are just stronger or different colored versions of another.

There are stronger versions of weaker spells, but even if you "count" them as 1 spell, there's more spells and spell diversity in BG than there is in DA. And again, trying to claim a paladin is a fighter despite having less weapon selection and healing/buffing/utility spells is a fallacy. A paladin is not a fighter. They aren't played the same way, and they don't fill the same role. And that's without even getting into subclasses or weapon abilities (i.e., a sword/shield paladin is played vastly different from one with Holy Avenger).

My point is again the same as above. What most people mean is "I like Baldurs Gate more", but for some reason they feel compelled to justify that by saying that Baldurs Gate is far more challenging and complex etc. etc.
I'm just trying to say that's not universally true.

No, they're separate points. Baldur's Gate (2, in particular) IS more complex, and it IS more challenging. You have more options for literally everything, and a greater number of diverse encounters (where even the diversity is greater). This doesn't make BG "better" or "worse" than DA, but it certainly makes it more complex. In fact that's pretty much exactly what complex means: "so complicated or intricate as to be hard to understand or deal with."

Dragon Age was not ever "hard to understand," and it was rarely "hard to deal with." When the hardest encounters can be beaten by moving your mages out of the fire and warriors into the dragonling adds, it's difficult to say the game presents anything that's hard to deal with. Additionally, the smaller class selection, spell selection, and party size made the actual prep/theory crafting much faster and easier for me.

Even the presence of the AD&D framework in BG was inherently complex. The round system, the THAC0 system, even individual spell effects all required a good deal of thought to fully comprehend what they were and how they could be used. This is (oddly enough!) one of Baldur's Gate's biggest weaknesses - it's TOO complicated in some ways, and not always in good ways. AD&D on the whole was a limited system, and is *very* dated nowadays. Trying to figure out concepts like THAC0 requires reading old ass literature to fully understand the system. It's not something that's logically figured out at first glance - equipping platemail armor gives you a lower armor stat than chainmail. That shit is confusing until you figure out precisely what it all means.

Here's the rub, though: does that dated, arcane framework of old rules and systems make BG a "better" game? Does it make it more "fun?" I'd say no, it really doesn't. But does it make BG more "complex?" You bet your ass it does. There's not even a comparison.

In the end, "liking" BG or DA more is personal preference, and they both have strengths and weaknesses. DA's simplicity is both a strength and a weakness - it's easier to pick up and understand, but lacks the tactical diversity that BG offers. BG's complexity is also a strength and a weakness - it has far more options for builds and strats, but at the cost of a needlessly complicated system using old rules and mechanics. It's hard to say if either game is "better" or "worse" than the other, taking each on its own merits - but all it takes is a glance at how many games Baldur's Gate has influenced to see how powerful it was in the medium. It was a huge milestone, a pinnacle of tabletop-RPG-as-video-game effort - the first, and quite possibly last, of its kind. A game might come out someday that matches the complexity of Baldur's Gate without also matching its confusing framework and systems, and that will truly be a legendary game. But Dragon Age tried to avoid the confusing framework and systems, and unfortunately lost a lot of the depth in the process. It still came out okay, and again I enjoyed it, but it didn't change the world - and certainly isn't influencing games for generations to come.

 

[Souplex]

Dark Souls is pretty up there.
The determining factor of whether or not they were stabbed in a face with your spear is whether or not you successfully stab them in the face with your spear.
Fire Emblem is also up there.

 

[Bat Vader]

The Witcher 2 has a very good combat system. One of the best I have ever played in an RPG. I enjoyed the combat in the Mass Effect games as well. While the combat in Dragon Age: Origins can be slow at times overall I enjoyed the combat in it; especially the finishing moves. I love the combat in Kingdom Hearts 2. The combat in KH1 was good but KH2 had a much better combat engine. I wish more JRPGs had combat like Kingdom Hearts 2.

I wanted to like FFXII but the thing that kept me from liking it and made me stop playing it altogether was the combat. I absolutely hated it. FFXIII should have had the combat system of Kingdom Hearts II but instead it got something that was terrible.

 

[elvor0]

You could just run through Baldurs Gate with 6 auto attack machines with different elemental weapons, if you want it even easier stack up on potions and scrolls.

Yeah...sorry I'm going to have to join the other people tearing you apart for that one. Which is precisely what would happen to you if you were to play BG 1/2 like that.

Mindflayers man. Mindflayers. Vampires and their fucking life drain, wizards will melt your brain before incinerating your freshly demented warrior. Bilbo Baggins would have more of a chance against a Red Dragon than a group of 6 auto attackers. Beholders would tear any buffs you had a new arsehole before making Medusa proud with their stonework.

Nevermind the fact that different weapons have different effects on different types of armor.

You /might/ just might be able to do that with the game on easiest settings, and even then I find it would be almost improbable on the final parts of BG1 and a good portion of BG2.

Yeah I know that statement wasn't supposed to be taken literally, but don't make points like that because you know it's going to come back to bite you in the arse.

On Topic?

Hack n Slash - Kingdoms of Alamur, fucking supurb, really enjoyed it, every way to play felt vastly different and some of the kill animations where fucking brutally beautiful. Like feeding a spike tailed lizard thing its own tail and watching it split open. The only problem I had with the combat was some encounters were obviously left over from its days as an MMO. The Maid of Windmere for a start. And the final boss was shite.

First Person - Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. /THAT/ is how you make a first person combat system, proper blocking, technique, weight, destructible environments, environmental weapons. I once fought some one in a library, a huge multi-tiered one. I knocked him to the planks and because they'd taken too much damage after having caught fire from a torch we knocked over mid fight, they broke, he fell through several stories and I followed him down to impale him as I landed. Because it ran on a highly modified version of the source engine it came with all the loveliness that that brings. Move over Skyrim!

"Turn-based" FF - X2, again, whatever other problems that game had going on, the combat system was the best of the genre, fast, fluid and fun.

 

[Eliwood10]

Unpopular opinion: Final Fantasy XII's system was very fun. it kept a traditional FF feel while improving and streamlining what came before. Biggest complaint I hear is that it makes the game play itself to which I say the gambits are completely optional, but very helpful even if you only want to streamline your tactics. And the fact that it removed random encounters entirely was a godsend.

The World End With You deserves special mention because there really is no system like it that I can think of. It's fun and challenging to use. The mechanics explicitly tie into the larger game as a metaphor to the main themes of the story. Just brilliant overall.

Fire Emblem is great for it's simple, easy to understand approach to turn based strategy.

 

[EstrogenicMuscle]

Every single Tales game.

Everyone who hasn't played Tales or Tales of games needs to go play them now.
It is one of many reasons Tales games are so great. They need more notice. It's sad because the West seems kind of at odds with experimenting with jRPGs outside of Final Fantasy. Tales has long been one of the big three in Japan along with Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy. And Tales is currently doing better in Japan than Final Fantasy. But here in the West people only seem to know Final Fantasy.

Tales long, long ago did away with random battles. One of people's most common complaints with jRPGs. They've also never, ever had turn based combat. They also consistently contain some degree of open exploration. Far more than Final Fantasy XIII. Tales of Vesperia has a much bigger world to explore than Final Fantasy XIII. And Tales of Xillia has a much, much bigger world to explore than Final Fantasy XIII. And people have been also complaining about a lack of fast travel in Japanese RPGs for years. Tales of Xillia has that, too. They also still have engaging characters and plot twists and plot twists that Final Fantasy games have long been without.

What are you waiting for, Tales of Xillia is calling your name if any of these criticisms apply to you. Fast travel, no random encounters, good action combat, explorable worlds, good characters, and good plots.

But especially for this thread is the combat good. Some of the best in RPGs period, Eastern or Western. If you don't like turn based combat, something like Tales of Graces or Vesperia is absolutely the game for you. Tales has crafted an constantly evolving and improving battle system that is quick, and engaging. With multiple difficulty levels, being brutally difficult at the highest. Hardcore gamers will be extremely satisfied with fighting

Spoiler

Nebilim

in unknown mode/difficulty in Tales of the Abyss.

Tales combat is exceptionally great and puts most combat in both jRPGs and wRPGs to shame. It is a quality that needs to be experienced by most RPG players.

Tales games in general,especially Vesperia and Graces
A combo video speaks better than a thousand words

YMMV on which is better,Vesperia has Judith,and doesn't have that stupid accuracy system Graces had(if you don't have a high accuracy,your attacks won't stagger enemies with high evasion),Graces has the awesome quick step system(you can quickly dash in a direction by blocking and moving your stick where you want to go,or just press your stick twice real fast,if an enemy attacks you while you are doing this,you will get some CC and you will nullify all damage,even healing it if you have the right skills,this might seem broken,but it isn't),and the CC system(you can chain attacks as long as you have CC,it quickly regenerates when you are not attacking)

Right, well put. I'm glad someone else knows. The word definitely needs to be spread. A lot of people who hate turn based combat don't even know of Tales games.

Also, whether one likes turn based combat or not, this is objectively high quality. There are a couple of broken strategies in Tales of Vesperia if you know what you're doing like Rita Mordio's Tidal Wave. But aside from that combat is solid. Tales of Graces is arguably even better in some ways. Having no broken characters. I know that some people don't like the stamina system, I don't much either. But the Graces system has its own great benefits and can't be abused in the same ways as the Vesperia system.

If you don't mind spoilers, here are some examples of other entertaining battles in Tales games.

Graces optional fight(pre-after-story):

Spoiler

Tales of the Abyss optional boss(SPOILER!):

Spoiler

 

[Chris Tian]

snip

snip

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Its a little funny how you all act as if i did not play the Baldurs Gate games on the hardest difficulty more times than I care to remember.

The full meele runthrough is totaly possible, I did that, so that point stands.

I am also not trying to say DA:O is harder or whatnot, but most people keep listing points they like more about Baldurs Gate so I will try to make my point from a different angle.

If game A is vastly more complex and/or tacticaly challanging than game B, it would force every player to think alot more about what he does in the game.

This statement would be true if you compare CoD with a Total War game on a strategic and tactical level. The same would be true if you compare CoD with Baldurs Gate or Dragon Age.

This statement seizes to be true when you compare Baldurs Gate and Dragon Age.

I did not have to put more thought into playing Baldurs Gate than in playing DA:O, the two games felt remarkably similar to me.
In both games the Warriors do their hacking and slashing and fire a special abilitiy every now and then, the Casters would always use the same handfull of spells to do their job and the Rogues disarm traps, open locks and do their backstab or archery thing.

If Baldurs Gate were so much more challengeing, I too would have been forced to put much more thought in playing Baldurs Gate than into Dragon Age.

Since both games felt similar to me, the different level of challenge and complexity you feel between the two games is one of personal preference and not a universal truth. If it were the later everybody would feel the same way.

 

[The Madman]

Its a little funny how you all act as if i did not play the Baldurs Gate games on the hardest difficulty more times than I care to remember.

The full meele runthrough is totaly possible, I did that, so that point stands.

You haven't actually refuted anything any of us have said, all you've done is said "I say it isn't, which makes it true!" which frankly isn't much of an argument.

And honestly I'm not sure I do believe you played it. In BG2 there are, as I recall, only two pure class fighters in the entire game: Mazzy and Korgan. Then if your PC is a fighter as well that would make 3 melee classes. A full group is 6. So unless you played the entire game multiplayer then right there it's already impossible to have done what you said.

Still I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. For some reason, I assume boredom, you started up a multiplayer game and created an entire party of fighters... because. How did you actually beat any of the challenges the three of us mentioned then? I'm curious. Fighters have a few priest scrolls they can use but that's about it and few wands will allows fighters to use them either. So how exactly DID you beat the vampire sections? How did you get past the mindflayers, who only take a few hits to kill any fighter regardless of level or armour class? How did you beat the Beholders or Dragons?

I'm curious, I've never heard of anyone beating the game on its hardest difficulty with just fighters. I can think of a few tricks that might have worked, but on the hardest difficulty it would definitely have been tricky to pull off and required a hell of a lot of quickloading.

Also why? Having the characters interact both with you and each other is half the fun of Baldur's Gate. It must be dreadfully boring to complete the entire game without any NPC dialogue and a group of just fighters.

I'm also going to assume you've played through BG multiple times since you mention casters while also talking about a full fighter group.

 

[Chris Tian]

You haven't actually refuted anything any of us have said, all you've done is said "I say it isn't, which makes it true!" which frankly isn't much of an argument.

Well, no and somehow yes. My point is:
That Baldurs Gate is so much complexer than DA:O is not a universal truth, that is the same for everybody, if it were such it had to be true for me too.
So my feeling that BG1/2 and DA:O are equal, basically disproves that claim.
That means, my feeling BG and DA are equal and your feeling BG is more complex/challening are now opinions, none of which can claim to be fact or universaly true.

I can't refute anything else any of you said, because all of it are opinions and that makes everything besides the claim that your opinions are fact totally valid.

I thought I made my point very clear in my last post, but somehow you choose only to respond to the, for my point completly irrelevant, matter of the melee-run.

And honestly I'm not sure I do believe you played it. In BG2 there are, as I recall, only two pure class fighters in the entire game: Mazzy and Korgan. Then if your PC is a fighter as well that would make 3 melee classes. A full group is 6. So unless you played the entire game multiplayer then right there it's already impossible to have done what you said.

Yes, because you would not know how to do something, that makes it clearly impossible. And I totally argue about the differences between two games, one of which I havent even played, because that makes sense.

I never said "pure fighter class", I said "meele-group" and "auto-attack-machines", for me that means everybody who uses autoattack for more than 90% of the time. That includes Paladines, Kensais and whathaveyou.
I dont really know how to answer your question as to "how" I did it, since its not actually all that difficult. You can even solo the game, just google "Baldurs Gate 2 solo Kensai/Mage", so doing the same with six melee-mostly-auto-attack-users seems really easy in comparison.

Edit: I meant Barbarian... "Baldurs Gate solo Barbarian"

 

[Stray Samurai]

I wouldn't call this the best but definitely was the best when it came out. Revenant. A must play!

Here's a link to a bit of early gameplay:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UU2TCIf1k0U

It would be great if the new Torment game had a combat system like this.

 

[Pulse]

Dragons dogma.

I've praised its combat enough times on this site.

It's pretty damn close to perfect combat wise.

 

[Aircross]

I'll have to go with the Tales series as well, especially Tales of Destiny Remake, which arguably has the fastest combat system.


Heck, even spell casting is fast.

...and yes, I'm a sprite lover.

 

[DementedSheep]

Dark souls I'd say. I've played the demo for Kingdoms of Amular and that was quite good too (and I intend to buy it at some point) but I can't really judge that form a demo alone.
Mount and blade for mounted combat.

Baldurs Gate is fun once you get some tools...until you get high enough for instant death spells that is. I hate them, I hate having party member die to them because it always feels cheap and you can be completely dominating a fight and them all of sudden you have to restart because of it and hate using them because winning with one is always very unsatisfying.