Grimrock

Greco wrote:However, why not having an option on this. I think that AlmostHuman should consider adding some kind on option (like the automap disabled feature, for example). So those that want to play combats turn based can benefit from it.

Turn based is not a feature, it's a major game design decision. The whole game has to be designed ground up around it. With LoG we wanted the player to experience the chaotic nature and unpredictability of realtime combat. Turn based combat does not fit that design goal very well.

Fanboyism aside, Eye of the Beholder 3 introduced an ALL ATTACK button. That can cut down mouse clicks a lot.

There are also many people who think EOB3 is the worst in the trilogy...

It wasn't very good, but it was better than EOB1 if they had been released at the same time/year. Naturally we expected more because of the age difference. but straight up comparison it's better (as far as I can recall). EOB1 was pretty limited in scope and resources.

But all that doesn't mean the ALL ATTACK button was the cause of it. Does it?
(also EOB3 had 6 characters not 4 like LoG so it was harder to control)

wikipedia says:
Eye of the Beholder III: Assault on Myth Drannor was not developed by Westwood Studios, the developer of Eye of the Beholder and The Legend of Darkmoon, but rather in-house by the publisher SSI. Despite employing an updated version of the engine, interesting and oft-unique NPC selection and welcome gameplay tweaks such as an 'All Attack' button and the ability to use polearms from second rank, it was not well received. Reviews criticized the oversized and maze-like maps, lag issues, unchallenging battles, poorly designed puzzles and uninteresting storyline.

I guess there's just a slippery slope issue where at some point the player is presented "click here to beat the game". A balance is needed, and I personally feel that an all-attack option would depreciate the value of the Grimrock experience

Komag wrote:I guess there's just a slippery slope issue where at some point the player is presented "click here to beat the game". A balance is needed, and I personally feel that an all-attack option would depreciate the value of the Grimrock experience

Now I remember why I left this forum:
The constant over-exaggeration and fanboish love for everything in Grimrock even the bugs or flaws in design.

"Click here to beat the game" because you do 1 click instead of 2 or 4? Yeah, that's the same.
Depreciate the value of Grimrock experience because of 1 less mundane thoughtless click. Yeah, it's not about the puzzles and tactics it's about mashing buttons, like Diablo.
Sorry for the sarcasm, but your post was offensive to me too in a passive aggresive way.

Kostas wrote:Fanboyism aside, Eye of the Beholder 3 introduced an ALL ATTACK button. That can cut down mouse clicks a lot.

Well in EOB3 you could have a party with up to 6 characters. Some or all (can't recall exactly) classes could dual wield so they could attack with both left AND right hand independently. This way one could end with up to 12(!) buttons to click for a full round of attacks. Even with a mage holding his spell book and a cleric holding his holy symbol you could still have 10 attack buttons so the ALL ATTACK button made actually some sense here.

Now in Grimrock we got 4 characters. They can't dual wield so have 1 attack per round. That's 4 buttons for 4 attacks tops. You're sure you can't deal with that?

Kostas wrote:It wasn't very good, but it was better than EOB1 if they had been released at the same time/year. Naturally we expected more because of the age difference. but straight up comparison it's better (as far as I can recall). EOB1 was pretty limited in scope and resources.

No, no and NO... Im not even going to bother explaining that one.. just one big FAT no!!

I didn't mean to offend you Kostas, sorry. I think you honestly do have a valid and reasonable point. I just used the "click to win game" example as a logical extreme. I didn't mean say that having an "all attack" was equivalent to that, but rather I just meant to illustrate that there is a continuum, and when making a game there have to be some decisions made where to stand on stuff like that, some healthy balance between ultra-micro-management to oversimplification.

By "depreciate" I just meant "reduce" a little. I didn't mean to say it would reduce the good experience very much, just some. That is my opinion for me though, as it sounds like for you it would actually make the game a better experience to have all-attack. Fair enough.

But the developers have to make other related design decisions, such as monster difficulty, walking speed, attack frequency, etc, and if they tried to accommodate an all-attack feature as an option, it would be very difficult to balance both options with everything they affect. I think they made the right call for the majority of players, although I freely admit there is a minority who are slightly worse off because of it.

Kostas wrote:

Komag wrote:I guess there's just a slippery slope issue where at some point the player is presented "click here to beat the game". A balance is needed, and I personally feel that an all-attack option would depreciate the value of the Grimrock experience

Now I remember why I left this forum:
The constant over-exaggeration and fanboish love for everything in Grimrock even the bugs or flaws in design.

"Click here to beat the game" because you do 1 click instead of 2 or 4? Yeah, that's the same.
Depreciate the value of Grimrock experience because of 1 less mundane thoughtless click. Yeah, it's not about the puzzles and tactics it's about mashing buttons, like Diablo.
Sorry for the sarcasm, but your post was offensive to me too in a passive aggresive way.

Please, please guys, stop asking for such a ugly "streamlining" of Grimrock with:
* Magic is too complicated, you have to remember 9 runes and create your spells yourself, everytime.
* Make this turnbased as realtime is to fast and dangerous.
* Attack all button, as asking for individual timing decisions and click is to stressful for players.

As Petri already explained multiple time, this was part of design and balancing decisions & completly in the spirit of the old-school ancestors like Dungeon Master. People which feel still like that, should play maybe Diablo 3, it's very streamlined in that sense: magic IS simple, just click. While it is also realtime, it's neither fast nor dangerous, timed clicking is not required just keep on clicking.

Thanks to the AH developers for staying true, and not introducing such stupidifying "features".
(My personal wish for LoGII would be, reduce compromises even more! No painless resurrection/healing on the crystals, more dangerous poison, (perma-)crippling of limbs and bodyparts , true darkness, harder food managment etc. -> pick up some ideas from viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2576&hilit=ivan&start=10#p26891 ;c))