Combat sucks in this game, hear me out

[COWABUNGA]

I know some people say the combat is actually great, but those are wrong. Just because a game has a dodge mechanic does not mean the combat is fun or interesting.
For example, you can get a simple chain lightning spell, that once upgraded can bounce to more enemies. It does fairly low damage, but its cheap and its an AOE that applies shock. That's all good. The problem is, its not fun or interesting in the least, and literally every shock spell in the game is in essence a variation of this exact spell with a different coat of paint. Imagine instead if this spell could lift an enemy up, and forcibly push them away, causing damage on impact, or allowing you to knock them off cliffs. Think back to the fun physics and intractability of the Force Unleashed games, or that one Might & Magic RPG. Instead of having spells with fun interactions, we instead get colors that make enemy health bar go down.
But hey, you can hecking dodgerino!!!! WOW!
Even f*cking Skyrim had abilities that can ragdoll your enemy. You're telling me Obsidian in their decades of experience didn't think "Hey.. Why don't we just give the player FUN abilities, instead of just making the same ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ cookie cutter spells in every generic RPG?"
Why not have the ranger root spell spread out and grow, grabbing onto units as it expands. Instead its quite literally a 3d model of roots with a glowing green effect that you spawn in on the terrain, and if an enemy touches it they just stop being able to walk. Its so hideously boring and uninspired I want to drop the game every time I realise how much better spells could be. Why are there no movement abilities? Why not let us double-jump? Air dash? Fly?? ANYTHING? Its literally just spamming the spacebar whenever an enemy has a glowing symbol above their head. Its so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ mediocre and dull that I feel like I'm playing a game made by 10 dudes on a tight budget, not one of the most well known RPG developers of all time.
But yeah, cool you can dodge like in other "action" games or whatever. Wow.

[[OPP]SuperCow]

Yeah, well, that's just like, your opinion, man.

[COWABUNGA]

Originally posted by OPPSuperCow:

Yeah, well, that's just like, your opinion, man.

What is good about the combat in this game?

[LazyJoeBeard]

I fully agree that the combat in this game is lacking quite severely.

[droaan]

I agree. It's pretty bad when you can ruin the whole game with a book and Pistol.
So OP.

[TofuStranger]

I'm just disappointed that 3rd person is so discouraged and feels so janky in comparison. Haven't sunk much time into this yet though. Why is vanilla Skyrim still better is my main question after all these years. Even back then we had the option to choose any camera view we wanted, from first person to 3rd person

[COWABUNGA]

Originally posted by TofuStranger:

I'm just disappointed that 3rd person is so discouraged and feels so janky in comparison. Haven't sunk much time into this yet though. Why is vanilla Skyrim still better is my main question after all these years. Even back then we had the option to choose any camera view we wanted, from first person to 3rd person

Skyrim does a much better job at immersing you in the world. You're punished for stealing, you can attack anyone you want, you can even kill most of them although Skyrim does have quite a few essential NPCs, theres a far larger variety of spells and abilities, you aren't FORCED to have companions following you around, commenting on everything they see. Theres more than that, but I think the feeling of exploration is increased as the game world itself has so much more interactivity, even something as mundane as being able to ragdoll an enemy and knock them off a cliff would add so much to just walking around in this game. In Skyrim you could bump into a travelling NPC on a bridge, or way up on a mountain and you will instinctively want to push them off the edge and watch them drop. For whatever insane reason Obsidian didn't recognise the importance of interactivity an RPG like this, so you end up running around a lifeless world where every NPC stands in place, never moving, waiting for their quest checkpoint to activate, and all the while the player can do absolutely NOTHING to interact with them outside of progressing quest markers. Probably the only case of an interactive environment this game has is that lightning spells can create AOE damage pools of electricity when you hit any pool of water with them, and then you can also create platforms made of ice from hitting water with ice spells. Is it a coincidence that water is the only thing in the environment that the player can interact with? It's like one guy at Obsidian realised they're making a first person open world RPG in the likes of Skyrim and that maybe they should include some form of environmental interaction, hence spells at least interact with water.

Sorry for the absolute spam of writing, but your comment got me thinking.

My original post was more focused on the combat, but I realise now that one of the issues I have with the combat is the lack of interactivity with even the enemies. The entire game and every aspect of it can be boiled down to a lack of interactivity. It really does feel like made a CRPG with real time combat from a first person perspective, except in doing so they forgot to add anything to aid in play immersion, and at the same time they forgot to implement the significance of dialogue choices that are usually found in those CRPGs.

As a side note, levelling takes a long time in this game and you end up only having a few abilities available for most of the game, leading to combat becoming repetitive fast. I sincerely don't understand why there arent more spells or abilities in the game. Did they spend all of their time filling the environments with mushrooms and brown NPCs to the point that if took over much of the development time? Why am I still fighting recoloured versions of spiders and lizard-men? Why does melee combat feel so unsatisfying?? Why does the game perform like ass on my 5080?? I think I just hate this game.

[Inflammatory]

Originally posted by COWABUNGA:

brown NPCs

:thinking emoji:

[COWABUNGA]

Originally posted by droaan:

I agree. It's pretty bad when you can ruin the whole game with a book and Pistol.
So OP.

I honestly don't care if its easy to build an OP character, my issue is that there is such a lack of variety in spells and abilities that its not even fun to create an OP character. Normally in an RPG, creating your own character build that can decimate NPCs is part of the fun, but in this game it usually equates to you spamming one or two abilities and running off to the next quest marker. More options as well as a faster rate of levelling would keep combat interesting as you continuously get new toys to play with. I got so tired of killing everyone with the shield spell + ranger trap + electric gun that I had already reset my ability points by level 8 and changed into a wizard. The game was somewhat fun again for nearly an hour before combat become repetitive and annoying. They really ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up with the combat and skill variety, and its annoying that people seem to praise the game's combat.

[COWABUNGA]

Originally posted by Inflammatory:

Originally posted by COWABUNGA:

brown NPCs

:thinking emoji:

Sorry, forgot the mention the copious amounts of female soldiers as well.

[Kain]

What I've seen looked like a very fun combat with punchy melee and great magic system. I might get this game in a sale, seems to be lacking in many aspects I wanted, but combat definitely doesn't seem to be one of them.

[Inflammatory]

Originally posted by COWABUNGA:

Originally posted by Inflammatory:

:thinking emoji:

Sorry, forgot the mention the copious amounts of female soldiers as well.

thanks for the definitely not in bad faith criticisms chief

[COWABUNGA]

Originally posted by Kain:

What I've seen looked like a very fun combat with punchy melee and great magic system. I might get this game in a sale, seems to be lacking in many aspects I wanted, but combat definitely doesn't seem to be one of them.

Your opinion will change once you get to play the game. Weapons feel light and floaty, even the heavy weapons don't feel heavy as you're mostly spam dodging and flipflopping around the place waiting for your turn to attack. Spells are incredibly bright, and you only have access to around 4 at once, anymore would drain your "mana" too fast, and having more is pointless anyway as you want to use the ones you have skill points in. Not only that, but many of the spells are in essence the same thing but recoloured. Even status effects seem to do the exact same thing, fire, lighting, and poison are literally just DoTs, Ice I think slows the enemy and you might be able to stun them with it. Its literally a choice of "Do your want your spells to be red, green, or blue?"

[COWABUNGA]

Originally posted by Inflammatory:

Originally posted by COWABUNGA:

Sorry, forgot the mention the copious amounts of female soldiers as well.

thanks for the definitely not in bad faith criticisms chief

How is it bad faith? Is anything I've written a lie?

[Inflammatory]

you're saying the quiet part out loud. you're not supposed to do that.

[Kain]

Originally posted by COWABUNGA:

Originally posted by Kain:

What I've seen looked like a very fun combat with punchy melee and great magic system. I might get this game in a sale, seems to be lacking in many aspects I wanted, but combat definitely doesn't seem to be one of them.

Your opinion will change once you get to play the game. Weapons feel light and floaty, even the heavy weapons don't feel heavy as you're mostly spam dodging and flipflopping around the place waiting for your turn to attack. Spells are incredibly bright, and you only have access to around 4 at once, anymore would drain your "mana" too fast, and having more is pointless anyway as you want to use the ones you have skill points in. Not only that, but many of the spells are in essence the same thing but recoloured. Even status effects seem to do the exact same thing, fire, lighting, and poison are literally just DoTs, Ice I think slows the enemy and you might be able to stun them with it. Its literally a choice of "Do your want your spells to be red, green, or blue?"

That's the thing. It doesn't, watching some gameplays weapons clearly seems to have some weight to them and enemies react accordingly and stagger as it seems they should.

Plus, the spells do seem to to have different effects. Like ice, really freezing enemies. But, we will see. Again, I don't think I'll get it now because the story seems cookie cutter. But in a sale it might be worth it.