dtgreene: I consider combat to be important because it's the one aspect of the game, other than MP used for spellcasting, where the numbers actually matter, and I play RPGs for the numbers and other mechanics.
Non-combat mechanics just aren't crunchy enough in these games, and with combat being bad, the game falls flat, particularly when combined with the other annoyances I mentioned.
I ended up not liking Baldur's Gate 1 & 2, either. Give me turn-based combat or don't even pretend to be an RPG.
ncarty97: I play for the story and immersion myself. I like turn based when the whole game is turn based (like Ultima's 1-6), I can't stand it when everything is real time, then combat happens and it's turn based (ToEE for example). It just breaks the immersion for me. So in that sense, I liked the combat in U7, however it was a pretty big mess, so it wasn't a feature of the game for me.
I dislike that mix, but for a different reason. I do not like it when a game that's supposed to be an RPG turns into an action game when I'm trying to avoid (or seek out) enemy encounters.
Also, visible enemies that move in real time can be worse than random invisible encounters. SaGa 3 is a good example of this; in the original, you have a low random encounter rate, but in the DS remake, later in the game you basically can't avoid the visible enemies without stopping time.
There's also the approach taken in games like Ultima 2/3 and (I believe) Questron in which the game looks turn based at first, but if you take too long to enter a command (in Ultima 3, it's 5 seconds), you forfeit your turn.
