OK, I finally took the plunge on Baldur’s Gate 3, and, coming from playing several hundreds of hours of Solasta recently, the first thing I noticed is the lack of a combat grid.
Going back a bit further, my son and I spent a ridiculous amount of time playing Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle. We were super pumped for the sequel, but when it finally came out, it kind of fell flat for both of us. Whether or not it’s down to this, I don’t know, but they also removed the grid.
That game, of course, was an XCom-like. XCom used a grid, but a more recent Firaxis game, Marvel’s Midnight Suns, got rid of the grid as well.
To me, all these gridless iterations of classic strategy games just aren’t as engaging. I guess they’re going for a more immersive rpg type of feel? But to me it seems to sacrifice the strategy aspect, and ultimately, judging based on my hours played, that always ends up being too great a sacrifice. My play time on Marvel’s Midnight Suns is less than 10% of Xcom 2, and the same is true for Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope.
I’m sure BG3 is a great game, and I’m sure I’ll enjoy the campaign, but so far it’s not giving me the ‘feels’.
Do you miss grids? Or did they only slow you down?
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Ultimately, the world is not a grid. So while grids may be great for pure strategy games like XCom (and I really enjoyed XCom, not knocking it at all), I think a lot of people would say that for more story-focused games like RPGs, they break the immersion. Thus, BG3 (which I’m also really enjoying) does not use one. Neither do any of the party-based RPGs that I can think of off the top of my head. For me personally, it depends on the game. I am perfectly happy without one in BG3. But I enjoyed having one for XCom, and more recently for Warhammer 40k Mechanicus. I would offer that as a suggestion if you are looking for a gridded turn-based strategy game.
Warhammer 40k Mechanicus Oh damn, it’s -76% off right now on Steam. Yes, I think I will be checking it out, thank you!
The assertion is plain wrong. Some games don’t use grid, some do. There is no trend that I can see.
Solasta released an expansion this year and aow4 dropped in April iirc. There certainly are many others.
It’s not the lack of a grid specifically that bothers me in BG3, it’s that there are a lot of scenarios where in tabletop an enemy would be ruled to have cover, but in BG3 the shot is simply obstructed and your character needs to move before they can take it.
Also sometimes the automatic positioning for melee attacks is bad and will tell you that you can’t reach, but if you click to move and then click to attack you actually can.
Also the fact that AoE spells target the ground specifically instead of an arbitrary point in space, which means in some areas you get weird situations where the enemies are close enough together to fireball all of them but you can’t do it from your location because the spot where you need to place the fireball is in a slight depression that you can’t see into from where you are.
Also there is some weirdness about casting AoEs through doorways, where even if you can see someone that doesn’t mean you can fireball them because it’s treating the fireball “projectile” as being wider than I would expect, so that it can only go through at certain angles.
I do think a grid system would be less likely to have these issues, but they could be fixed without it.
Grids definitely make a different type of game. I think BG3 makes sense gridless, but I also enjoy Into the Breach which is very chess-like.
Grids rule, free movement drools
Even in tabletop rpgs, I advocate for the removal of the grid. I prefer to do combat in the style of tabletop wargames, free movement in any direction, treating each inch of movement as 5 feet (for D&D and Pathfinder).
I just find that a lot more dynamic.
Off topic, how’s Solasta? Halfway through my second playthrough of BG3, and looking for another crpg. I’m not new to the genre (played wasteland 2-3, PoE: DF and D2OS previously), but new to DnD.
On topic: I don’t know if I need it, honestly. I feel like I would appreciate knowing distances and where exactly my character will stand according to a grid, but I haven’t found it to be very necessary.
I friggin love Solasta. Our tabletop D&D game kind of fell apart, and this was the first thing I found that gave me that D&D vibe. My wife liked it right away, too, so this gave us some quality together play time.
The graphics & acting probably don’t come close to BG3, but I honestly don’t care. The battles are very fun. I think the UI is easier to understand and use than BG3, at least to start. Main actions, bonus actions, spells, etc. are all very clearly marked. Another fun feature is that you can create characters outside of games, and level them up, too. I’ve spent a good amount of time just making characters, looking for interesting results. At in person games I tend to always play the same kind of character, but being able to explore lots of different classes in an easy way was a big unexpected bonus of the game.
There’s also a ton of user created content.
It often goes on sale for $15. Definitely worth checking out.
I’m convinced, getting it tonight and starting it as soon as I finish my dark urge playthrough. Thanks! Kinda wanna give a go to the character I prepared yesterday, a rock gnome bard who hates rich people and dual wields a hammer and sickle. (Ik two weapon fighting sucks in 5e).
Removed by mod
