Is there any grid turn based game where the environment doesn't conform to the grid? For example in XCOM, everything is rectangular because it hast to fit the grid. Phoenix Point is the same.
I like the grid because it makes movement more intuitive but I don't like how it makes everything look so blocky.
>Is there any grid turn based game where the environment doesn't conform to the grid? no not really and that would be quite stupid to do. It would make a lot of spaces where you are in doubt if you can move or not.
Joshua Gonzalez
Imagine the people raging at it too
>WTF THERE'S ONLY A TINY PIECE OF TERRAIN IN THAT SQUARE MY GUY COULD FIT THERE EASY WTF REEEEEE
Lincoln Jackson
>calling something stupid just because the solution isn't evident Tell me, why should I take you seriously when you say something is impossible at the first obstacle?
Perhaps you could block a tile if more than x% of it is being occupied by an obstacle. I'm just wondering if it's been done before.
Nicholas Walker
Temple of Elemental Evil doesn't have a grid.
Blake Rogers
Color code the grid, or just draw the grid to only contain places you can move. It isn't that hard. Yea Forums in charge of game design
Brayden Ross
In Phantom Brave the map is tile-based but your units' movement and skills aren't locked to it
most of x-coms use flanking irregular cover would really fuck this up besides that only the actual player area is blocky in any way its a good indication of where you can go changing so much for subjective aesthetic shit is stupid
Cameron Torres
>Color code the grid, or just draw the grid to only contain places you can move so how you do in Phoenix Point.... you can setup stuff however you like as long as the player is not supposed to move there. But then its just background.
>I'm just wondering if it's been done before. ive done it in a prototype. It is not intuitive or worked very well. It reads bad compared to the "blocky" look.
Josiah Sanchez
Yeah that style is pretty common in Japanese games. You can move freely within a region, it's like Valkyria Chronicles. It's a good solution to the problem.
Flanking doesn't exist in the actual XCOM games, kiddo ;^) Also why are you writing like this?
I'm talking a full game, not an amateur prototype.
>I'm talking a full game yes and no full game will be made as it is an idiotic idea which even an amateurish prototype would show you fag.
Isaac Barnes
What I would suggest is that instead of moving from a big square grids that you make each "square" smaller. So pic related is the example. in NuXcom all terrain is one "square" big at a minimum.
If you move to smaller squares, you can make something half a "square". This coudl be used to make "small" characters, or be used to slow movement. Imagine characters have to squeeze through or need a special skill to move through it. This allows you to make more varying sizes of terrain. The issue with most grid based games is that the player-size is the default size of grid. Sometimes you have "big guys" who take up 4 squares, but the standard enemy and player unit is 1 square and everything conforms to that 1 square.
old x-com copycats are lodged in their own asses just as far as you so they are not willing to change shit just look at xenonauts the ''jap style'' is not so great when you need to estimate your hit chance (bonuses from elevation) the whole point of xcom
im writing like this because im enlightened, naturally
Thomas Clark
I'm liking this idea. Another thing I was considering is this, you can move freely like in Divinity OS, but distance calculations are done using a grid that's overlayed over the terrain. The grid isn't used for movement and only for distance calculation.
Blake Torres
The downside of divinity's system is that it can cause situations where you don't end up where you want to be. Grids are snappy and so when you move to X to go to X.
Daniel Perez
Yeah but that's the point, you end up in the tile you want to be at which is what matters. Instead of an ability range being in yards or meters or whatever, it's in tiles, but movement is free and the buildings, trees, etc. can be anywhere. I may be missing something but I think this gives the benefits of the grid without the disadvantages. I'm probably missing something
Gavin Gomez
well this is fairly easily done. Havent seen many games use this but if you look at Phoenix Point they actually do this already.The big monsters and vehicles take up 4 or more squares. You could just scale it the other way so normal units take up 4 squares, small 1 and large 16 or so. Would limit size of grid and make it a bit more heavy to run but not that much.
Noah Martin
nu-xcom operates on low numbers - its much easier to tell how far your troops can move on current and future turns adding complicated grids or just movement by radius doesnt serve the gameplay in any way more complicated doesnt mean better its the same with damage most of x-clones dont keep the low values and make weapons with high numbers it leads to situations where you hit an enemy with 100 hp using a 86-112 dmg gun and he survives with 1hp
Jordan Reed
For someone so bellicous and know it all you should know that A) flanking does exist in X-COM, in the sense that a straight clear path means bigger chances to hit every shot and B) flanking DOES exist in XCOM, it doesn't exist in X-COM. If the guy's prototype was already counter-intuitive, why the hell would he spend time on the rest of the game? Valkyria Chronicles is a very poor example because LOS in that game is just shit, almost random. It somehow manages to try to rip-off X-COM but the realization is worse than LOS in XCOM, which is saying something (and I'm a huge fan of all those games mentioned). Both Jagged Alliance and Silent Storm are somewhat freer in movement and line of sight than every other TBT game I've played, and this ends up making them far more confusing than they needed to be, despite also being fantastic games.
Ryder Parker
I guess Valkyria Chronicles does kinda what you're describing.
Jose Foster
Does it need to be x-com like? Otherwise the Divinity original sin games?
Blake Williams
well I guess he means in games that uses a grid. D:OS does not use a grid.
Jackson Martin
Mutant Year Zero
Cameron Stewart
>WTF THERE'S ONLY A TINY PIECE OF TERRAIN IN THAT SQUARE MY GUY COULD FIT THERE EASY WTF REEEEEE Devs have figured out how to show you that before you make the move AGES AGO you dingus
Nathan Thompson
>I like the grid because it makes movement more intuitive than moving without a grid? how exactly?
Jackson Collins
>I'm just wondering if it's been done before. does this count?
So is your only complaint that it makes the environments look "square" or what?
Nathaniel Smith
Measuring distance. You always know the exact distance between all the units and you can plan your moves.
Nah, they make an effort to hide it but everything is on the grid.
Well, yes, but it goes beyond that. I find it annoying, see this Mutant Year Zero screenshot for example. You can't have, say, a car at an odd angle. Everything must fit the squares. Compare the environments in a game like Divinity OS and how much better they look because they don't have to conform to blocks.
>You can't have, say, a car at an odd angle. Everything must fit the squares. I agree, but I think it's about the best implementation possible given the cover mechanics.
Easton Phillips
I find cover to be pretty lame in these games. Cover should be determined by the visible total area of a unit, not by predetermined cover tiles. But that's opening another completely different whole can of worms
Lucas Watson
They originally were going to have diagonal cover in EU, but they said that led to pretty confusing situations with LoS and flanking so they scrapped that idea.
Brandon Morris
you should see how cover is (or maybe was) calculated in phoenix point they traced a path for every bullet through every element of terrain in the way essentially you had 0-100% chance to take 1-whatever damage in any given situation maybe simply knowing that you have -60% is better fuck if i know
Kayden Barnes
phoenix point actually does that, though cover is used to give an idea of a tiles protective rating and to make the soldier crouch or wallhug for better survivability
Nathaniel Scott
Grids are shit, DOS dabs on prehistoric dogshit like Xcom.
Aaron Reyes
Battletech uses a hybrid of XCOM and Divinity where it has a grid but it is along a line of dots so your mech can go on top of mountains or rocky terrain.
This has probably been said already, but why would you want a grid based game in that your character doesn't move on said grid? What would be the point? There are several decent turn based combat games however that do allow free-movement within a radious as someone mentioned with Valkyrie Chronicles, it's my preferred turn-based method gameplay honestly.
Isaiah Howard
fuck off tranny
Nathaniel Thompson
What kind of bullshit comment is that? The guy has a point, he's right, and the game is niche.
That's great, but at the same time it validates the idea that you don't need blocky shit for cover so it's an argument in my favor.
I think you fucked up by linking to polygon, but I'll give the game a look
Andrew Reed
Well shit, Battletech is just what I wrote here It's a grid of dots and if there's not enough space available the dot is removed. There was a game after all, if you're reading this get fucked fags (you know who you are) and thank you for mentioning that one I would've missed that game for sure.
Noah Hill
phoenix uses the same blocks as xcom and i wasnt saying that this model is good