Deathfire - Update #8, Rules of Egangement

G3 Studios has posted the next update of Deathfire: Ruins of Nethermore talking about the rules of egangement, and showing off a new screenshot.

Rules of Engagement

As you know, from the very beginning, we were dedicated to adding turn-based combat to the game, and over the months, a number of questions came up, which spurred me into giving you a bit of a rundown over our plans.

Why turn-based combat in the first place?

The advantages of turn-based over real-time combat are certainly in the eye of the beholder, and his or her preferences, but also lie in the game itself.

When I have my action-RPG hat on, I’m perfectly happy with real-time combat. I play a lot of “Skyrim,” which is entirely in real time, and I enjoy it tremendously. I also loved the combat in games like “Legends of Grimrock” or the original “Dungeon Master,” etc. even if it became a mad clickfest at times. Regardlessly, they serve their purpose well in each respective game because the game as a whole was designed that way.

However, when I put on my more traditional role-player hat, real time doesn’t cut it for me for a number of reasons. For one, it gets very hectic, and when you are trying to control a party of six players, each decked out with various weapons and spells, this can quickly become a nightmare to handle. Not to mention, that I always feel at a disadvantage, because the computer doesn’t have to do all that…

In addition, real time combat somewhat limits the number of options you can offer the player at any one time. After all, actions have to accessible very quickly or else your characters may be dead before you even selected the right command.

It further minimizes real tactics and strategy, as you are essentially forced to react reflexively, without actual thinking about the situation. So there is a tremendous difference in focus between real-time and turn-based combat.

As I said before, real-time combat is not a problem per se, and it works wonderfully in a certain type of game. “Deathfire: Ruins of Nethermore” is, however, not that kind of game, as we are trying to dig deeper and create a richer role-playing experience. It is just not going to be an action-RPG.