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Why do modern strategy games hate the grid? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year 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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[-] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Grids aren't needed to get the same effect in a computer game. Also, when speaking about video games specifically, "grid based" combat has a bit of technical differences that you don't necessarily want or need in a strategy game. It affects positioning and animations. It makes diagonal movement and height changes awkward. It makes sense when playing PnP and helping to visualize and handle rules. But when a computer is doing all that in the background, having the freedom of movement and the visuals match a more realistic way of traversing terrain is better.

I don't really like grid-based movement in video games. It always feels weirder. It always shows how absurd some rules based on positioning are. It just sucks vs the more fluid style like BG3 has. Like, I love me some XCom, but I've played knock-offs that don't use grids, and they feel way better.