this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2023
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Why do modern strategy games hate the grid? (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 years ago by anakin78z@lemmy.world to c/games@lemmy.world
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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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[–] secret_online@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I'm currently in two different D&D campaigns. One plays combats on the regular 5ft grid, the other is "theatre of mind" where where everything is just described. Both are fine, I don't really feel like I lose anything with either method, it's just two different abstractions for the same ideas.

Larian's previous game, Divinity Original Sin: 2, was still highly tactical despite its lack of grid-based positioning or targeting. The game used its mechanics of skills, freer movement, and surfaces/clouds to really shake up each battle and make them unique. Each combat was like a little puzzle. For me, who usually bounces off the likes of XCOM, it was absolutely brilliant. BG3 is much the same, just with a different ruleset (and I'm glad I was familiar with it beforehand. It must be daunting to be thrown into 5e without having a book thrown at you).

Being a nerd now, there is actually a grid in these games, but it's only used for navmeshes and the surfaces. The game doesn't expose either of these to you in-game. Visually, the edges of surfaces are messy and extend/retract from where they technically are according to the engine. I suppose you can kind of see the navmesh grid by clicking all around the edges of walkable areas, but other than walking up to edges, the navmesh has little impact on anything else.