Grimrock

Dr.Disaster wrote:

majormaybe wrote:This type of game would be really fun turn based! Something like a dungeon-crawl Wizardry title.

Wrong. Turn-based LoG won't be half the fun it's right now because turn-based play kills any dynamic.

The only reason I'd disagree is mainly in regards to Mages in LOG. Most RPG games (even Wizardry which originally started with spell names like "Eslpultius" or something for fireball) changed to a more reasonable, easier manner of control. And Wizardry 7 is a perfect example. Because you could switch turn based and real time off and on, at will, in the middle of combat, etc. Having the Mages in LOG where you're tapping runes (which is great to make you feel immersed into the game) is a bit of a pain, trying to remember what spell does what, especially if the party has several mages, specialized in different things.

Either having the option for turn based, so you can look up spells/runes combo, or just remaining real time for the hardcore gamers, who got everything memorized, would be an awesome option.

You could keep hitting ESC to "pause" the game, but that's going to get troublesome.

Komag wrote: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.

Fair enough. You're not like some other posters in this thread, so I'll reply to you.
Yes, it is a matter of opinion. TBH I'm not personally bothered by having 2-4 weapons to click with the mouse. I can move it and click fast enough (FPS training). Then there's wizards and runes, but that's another matter. But there are some people who are a bit "challenged" in the reactions/motion department and for them an ALL ATTACK button would really sweeten the deal. On the other front, purists are not obligated to use that button so it doesn't affect them at all. Besides different attacks have different cooldowns so they can squeeze more out of it.
All in all this proves your argument about the designer choice fails. The minority is worse off, but the majority isn't better off at all. It's just the same.

Now for the casting system, it's good if you have 1 mage, but if you have 2 or 4, it starts to break down a lot. Especially if you move the party slots around and then confuse who casts which spells. Cool suggestions have been to autocast from scrolls found (making them less worthless finds), remembering last cast spell (maybe too much), having an indicator of which mage it is above the runebook, etc.

combat is awesome for grimrock and it's pretty simple really.. The Rune combos are fun! ( I rock 2 mages in my party usually )

The scroll idea is pretty cool, sacrificing some stats from an item to use a scroll might be a decent trade-off.. I like clicking the runes though..so.. I wouldn't use scrolls.

remembering last spell is a bit cheese imo unless it's a skill gained in spellcraft.. most people tend to spec their mages in one tree usually and use that one powerful spell anyway.. /yawn