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Is it fair to assume that despite significant feedback suggesting that changing the turn based mode by altering the way action speed, dexterity, etc could impact a characters frequency to act (action economy?) and restore some of the strategic depth of combat available in Rtwp, now that it's out of beta we are essentially looking at the final product of turn based mode? Also, is there any rationale developers can share regarding this issue? Is it related to pen and paper rules/players? Thank you.

I agree, and there are other posts here that say the same thing. I have always thought Obsidian devs were talented--that there must be SOME reason to elect a turn base system with hard turns. But I can't find it. Rather than introduce more balance and diversity, the latest patch just increases the weapon damage of smaller weapons to make them more competitive with larger, heavier, higher damage weapons in turn base mode. It feels like a lazy solution, and I fear the rest of their balance solutions will look like this. Rather than tackle the root cause--the "hard turns with one action"--they're going make everything feel the same. So I too, returned to RTwP until they can rethink this.

We already had a fairly balanced system that didn't include arbitrary "rounds" (whatever they are--in this case, 6 seconds) called RTwP. We can debate whether it's entirely balanced but I don't think most players would consider a high dex chanter very broken, to use your example. Maybe the difference is that you assume that the chanter abilities are tied to when the character acts (chanter acts so his next chant takes effect) vs tied to how they behaved in RTwP, which was according to the ability specifics itself (this chant plays for X seconds and lasts for Y seconds, next chant starts in Z seconds and plays for...). I think when most people suggest getting rid of rounds, they are suggesting devs get rid of rounds so they can just revert most abilities back to how they were initially balanced. Essentially, an ability would act on its own schedule again; if you drop a Consecrated ground, it would tick every 3 seconds from when it was cast to heal the people who happen to be standing in its area of effect at that tick time, completely independent of the cleric's turns. Chants are a little more complicated than a spell because of the timing of chants, but you'd have chants that would tick or expire between chanter actions, similar to how they behave in RTwP. I think it comes down to "is it more interesting to play in a world where everyone moves at the same speed and gets a single action (ignoring free actions and other stuff) per every six arbitrary second round and the only difference is who acts earlier in any given round, or is it more interesting to play in a world where some people could be faster or slower, with advantages and disadvantages, to those playstyles?" As many others have noted, characters have too much health for initiative to usually make that much of a difference, so Turn Based overwhelmingly favors heavy armor and slow but high damage weapons since the disadvantages to these choices are now minimal because they've been shoehorned into six second actions--and that doesn't feel very interesting to me.

Not sure the best way for devs to see this feedback, so I'm trying here. I just got the "turn based" survey via email. Based on the final questions, I fear devs may draw the wrong conclusions and want to clarify my view. The final questions reads like it wants respondents to rate their view of the current turn base mode against RTwP. I selected "Worse" both times because the implementation still needs work. You don't need to spend that much time with it to run into various bugs (AE-spell bug, ship crew AI bug, etc.) and that the balancing needs a lot of work (my conclusion: it'd be easier to get rid of rounds, re-emphasize action speed and possibly separate stride from actions with a stride meter that restores over time than re-balance every piece of gear, ability, and stat). I still find it more enjoyable to play RTwP because I feel like that mode is less buggy and supports more playstyles and strategic approaches. However, I'm super-appreciative that the devs even built us the option to play this way, and that turn base, while flawed ("worse") is still viable in beta. My views will probably change when the bugs are fixed and the balancing is done. I'm looking forward to how they address the balancing challenges. I'd also request a more nuanced survey next time to reflect this view, as I'm wary they may conflate a "worse" response with "wow, turn base is really unpopular or poorly-received yet we sunk all that effort into building it."

This is a great point--there are some things that would have to be tweaked in removing turns/rounds, like adjusting for stride for short delay actions. Having a wizard move plus cast a short delay spell like mirrored image, then have another full stride available .4 seconds later, could be abused (since they could theoretically dance around the battlefield using short delay actions with zero recovery time). I don't think coming up with a solution is insurmountable; you could just have a stride meter for each unit based on their stride/stats/effects. As you move, it is exhausted, and replenished at a certain rate (stride per seconds). In the example above, a wizard moves and uses most of his stride, casts mirrored image, gets a new turn .4 seconds later, and at that point he has whatever his ending stride/move was from the prior action + replenished whatever .4 seconds of stride is (not a lot, presumably). When a unit's turn comes up, it has whatever his current stride is available to move (all, if he's been stationary for awhile, or very little in the case of the wizard who pranced around recently). Even though I'm just spitballing a solution, now that I think this through, I actually kind of like this tactically because the devs could visually show a) the stride meter for a character and/or b) the move distance a character is capable of moving to on a given action, like a radius (you wouldn't have to move your cursor and see white/red dots, it would be available to see automatically as a radius). It would also help delineate between fast and slowing moving characters/enemies ("oh, that bat has a huge stride meter and is really fast"). I guess I'm suggesting that they separate stride from action completely, so unlike the current implementation, you could in theory take your full stride plus your action. This would be balanced by re-introducing action speed, recovery time, and stride that replenishes over time, so if you did take your full stride+action, you wouldn't be able to take your full action+stride for some time. Or maybe certain actions "consume" stride? Anyway, it'd be more complex than the current implementation, but probably more strategic. TLDR: Yea, some stuff would have to be changed to get rid of turns, but I think those things are a) solvable and b) if thoughtfully implemented could actually improve the interface and mechanics/strategic depth.

I tried to review the four pages of feedback so apologies if I'm not adding anything new here. I suspect a lot of the (non-bug) issues I'm experiencing with TB is because somehow Turn Based, with each character taking turns performing combat actions, got conflated with having DnD-like "combat turns" (or rounds), which just like in a lot of incarnations of DnD, last 6 seconds in PoE2. I suggest keeping the first part of turn based and getting rid of the notion of having turns/rounds, since this second aspect, more than anything else, changes the way stats and abilities work in such a dramatic way that the only thing that could be done is re-balance each stat or ability with this very artificial 6 second turn in mind. Much has already been discussed about Dex/action speed, guns, AE-spell problems, shipmate AI issues, etc. But from what I can tell virtually every ability needs review to make sure they're still relevant in this new mode. For example, last night I looked at consecrated ground, a third level cleric spell. It recovers something like 5 health per round for 4 rounds. That's an incredibly mediocre heal for a third level spell, as it gets outclassed by the first level heal spell (heals base 30) and almost a second level spell that also does damage and has a longer AE range. Even with a super high intellect to extend duration, it still under-performs. In the regular mode, I recall it being a useful long term heal you can plonk on the ground and heal a decent amount of damage over time, partly because it ticks every 3 seconds rather than every 6 (per round). But in this new TB mode, there's basically no reason you would even select the spell, nevermind use it. That's just an example; there are lots of abilities that could use re-balancing to account for the dramatic changes that TB have brought. Moving away from turns/rounds liberates you from having to arbitrarily decide something lasts 20 seconds -> 4 rounds (and thus re-balance everything radically). Instead, abilities last whatever they're balanced to last for, so Consecrated Ground could return to ticking every 3 seconds. Rather than listing character turn orders, you might additionally list when abilities are scheduled to be cast, activate, or expire (like those consecrated ground ticks). It would also help address the action speed issue, as a fast character would just go sooner/more often in the turn order than a slower, more heavily armored character. You could still keep initiative, as a factor for who goes first initially, but after that everything comes down to action speed which is modified by weapons, stats, abilities, etc. The fast rogue with a dagger might get 3 or 4 turns with regular attacks in the same time frame that a slower 2-hander character goes. This would provide a lot more strategic depth to weapon choice, stats, and abilities that is currently lacking in TB mode, which presently favors formerly slower, high damage weapons and heavy armor, and abilities that now are free actions. Instead, a free action ability--like an often used defensive spell like mirrored image--would return to taking .3 seconds to cast, then that character is back up for taking an action/turn provided no one else is scheduled to act sooner. If two characters are "tied" in the turn order based on them selecting actions that result in them being active at the same time, they can use initiative to break the tie. TLDR: Ditch turns to avoid having to majorly rebalance all abilities and solve the current issues with stats and weapon balance. De-emphasize initiative except for initial turn orders and "ties". There's really no good reason I can come up with to impose artificial 6 second rounds for a computer game with mechanics where abilities, stats, and weapon speeds vary (for healthy strategic reasons!) in fractions of a second.