TURN BASED combat in Deadfire?!

[Triple - A Foxy Lad]

Alas, I couldn't get into Baldur's Gate since I found it a bit too obtuse for my sadly modern gaming mind, but I guess I would attempt ToEE and attempt Bauldr's Gate again down the road, now that I have more experience with DnD terminology.

 

well... if a few tips help.

 

THAC0 (ur attack score) and AC get better the *lower* they get. THAC0 15 is better than 20. AC -3 is better than +8.

 

DEX has to be 18+ on ur main character, regardless of class. no exceptions. CON ideally 16 on classes that arent Fighter/Ranger/Paladin. for those classes, go as high as u can.

 

STR less important than ud think. archery is the mutts nutts in BG1. if ur front line, than u prob want 14/15+ to wear full plate comfortably. later on, ull eventually find the gauntlets of ogre strength if u want ur vanguard to be something more than a wall.

 

u dont really want any more than 2 front liners, and one should be designated the main tank who gets priority on all the best armour. if they dont have dex 18 already, then make sure to grab the gauntlets of dex from the start of the gnoll stronghold when it becomes available. u want to aim for an AC of about -12ish for ur main tank late game, better if possible.

 

easy character to start the game with is an elf fighter with STR 18 / DEX 19 / CON 17 - rest of stats irrelevant, but dump INT and WIS before CHA for better prices in shops. go two points in longsword and two in longbow. Ull be starting the game with 2 THAC0 15 attacks a round at lv 1 with a longbow, which is mad. (20 base -1 proficiency, -2 dex, -1 elf, -1 longbow if u want the breakdown)

 

ur melee THAC0 will depend on how good those two numbers after ur STR score are, but i think it should be 17 at the worst.

 

wear the heaviest armour possible. u get no penalties for doing so, u retain ur whole DEX bonus.

 

Play a good aligned character. they get easier party compositions than anyone else - they get access to all the best archers. (Coran, Khalid + Kivan) and the most practical mage (Imoen, u can dual class her whenever its convenient. ideally when shes lv 4-6 and u can stick someone else on thief duty)

 

thieves should prioritise open locks and find traps.dont bother with anything else.

 

i cant really comment on the EE characters and items as i dont have EE.

 

i could go on about bg1 for ages and ages and ages. its become my 'comfort' game. god knows why. theres nothing it does that other games havent done better. for some reason it just helps me forget myself.

 

(anyhoo resuming topic about turn-based mode in deadfire. isnt it exciting?)

[Mirandel]

What a wonderful and precise term - "comfort game"! Love it!

 

On subject - do hope we can still get RTwP style games. For me TB is a huge "minus" to any game - immersion breaker, yes, but most importantly way too slow. Might work for 1vs1, but with several enemies and a party it's maddening! When every encounter - no matter how small! - becomes an endless battle it does not feel like a game anymore, it's a chore. Not to mention giving up to consoles - now-days it does feel as a greed and cutting corners (you do not have to care about AI with TB).

 

I do not skip games because of TB, but would much prefer any game with RTwP.

[gkathellar]

 

 

 

Pathfinder Kingmaker could really use a tunr based mod, Deadfire, with its ultra slow mode, not so much.

 

But it's great to have one, I'd definately try it out if they put it in.

You know that P:K has a "slow mode", right? You use the "v" button for it...

 

It has a slow mod, but Pathfinder's whole combat system was supposed to be played as turn based, all the classes, feats and such are designed around the idea of turn based combat. No matter how slow you make it, it won't change that.

 

Deadfire on the other hand, is designed for a computer, as a real time game with pause.

 

You could say the same about AD&D. There were both rtwp and turn based games made in this system, guess which of them were more popular?

 

Totally agree about Deadfire tho. Turn based IS however much easier to implement on consoles, and I wouldn't be surprised if that's the direction the game - or POE3 - goes.

 

 

The trouble with this comparison comes down to PF's very granular combat system, in which a character's turn is divided into one each of several types of action. PF:K is a functioning game, but because so many of its action mechanics happen "under the hood," so-to-speak, and outside of the player's sight or control, a lot of things don't work quite the way they probably should. The loss of 5-foot steps in particular becomes a huge deal, as it means any in-combat movement prevents you from making a full attack which is kind of important for a lot of classes. There's also some funkiness with swift action abilities and with switching abilities on and off. Mind, this all could have been avoided with a looser implementation of PF's rules in the vein of NWN, but that's not what was being sold.

 

The relationship between RTwP and turn-based systems is complex, as many games of the former type have systems of the latter type hidden carefully from view. This was the case in the IE games, and in spite of appearances is the case in PoE, which with its recovery and action times is effectively an elaborate ATB system. But this doesn't mean the conversion is simple or even possible in all cases. Many turn-based games specifically invoke complex action and timing management schemes that are virtually impossible to translate to RTwP. You'd be hard-pressed to take D:OS's action point system and make it work in real time (with or without pause) short of fundamentally altering the underlying systems. Likewise, RTwP games (PoE included) frequently have movement rules that are ... stretchy, in order to accommodate the real-time conceit, and those would be hard to work into a turn-based system.

 

PF:K is, again, a really good case study in all of this, because its attempt to work exactly like P&P and work exactly like a traditional RTwP game at the same time means it runs into some weird (but ultimately minor) issues with doing either.

 

(you do not have to care about AI with TB).

 

I don't really understand why you'd think this. Turn-based games frequently have an overload of strategic decisions to make every action, and an AI script for such a game has to sort through all of those options, exactly as it would for a real-time game. Are Chess computers not AI?

 

Obviously plenty of turn-based games have extremely rudimentary AI (Fire Emblem I am looking at you), but that's not a requirement by any means.

 

Ah. That actually might be a better fit for the franchise. I just have distinct memories seeing my friend play FF7 on his playstation and watching his character run 20 yards up to an enemy, hit him with a sword the size of a dinner table, and run back - only to have the enemy do the exact same thing. I remember thinking that it was one of the dumbest things I'd ever seen, because even at 12 I somehow innately understood the immersion-crushing wrongness of presenting a combat encounter that way.

 

Speaking as someone who's done a bit of fencing and a bit of grappling, RTwP hardly seems any less abstract to me. It still involves a lot of standing around doing nothing while waiting for your next action to come up. A lot of gamers who prefer real-time combat find the RTwP format just as immersion-breaking as you do turn-based for exactly the reasons you've stated - but clearly immersion doesn't come from realism for them either, because I've never seen a game implement real-time combat in a way that wasn't on some level surreal. What matters for the purposes of immersion isn't realism, but engagement with mechanics in such a way that abstractions become indistinguishable from the reality they're meant to allude to.

Edited December 23, 2018 by gkathellar

[Saito Hikari]

i could go on about bg1 for ages and ages and ages. its become my 'comfort' game. god knows why. theres nothing it does that other games havent done better. for some reason it just helps me forget myself.

 

Oh yeah, I should have specified BG2 EE and not 1, but I guess I really should just go play BG1 first even though people recommend skipping straight to 2.

 

I actually was going to play an archer, I was just torn between picking a Bard or a Ranger archer. People also said archers in BG2 weren't nearly as broken as they apparently were in 1, but eh.

Edited December 23, 2018 by Saito Hikari

[kanisatha]

 

 

 

I think it's cool that Obsidian is creating the option for those who prefer turn-based, though. Would be nice if turn-based game developers would make a similar accommodation.

 

If Deadfire gets a big enough sales boost from this though, all it's going to do is further reinforce the idea that turn based sells better than RTWP. Thus providing even less incentive for turn based games to add an optional real time mode.

But other recent TB RPGs have done poorly, sales-wise: T:ToN, BT4; and Realms Beyond barely made it across the line for its Kickstarter. TB comes across as being extra popular because TB fans tend to be much more vocal and insistent on their preference than RTwP fans.

Because what people don't seem to realize is that combat is not everything in an RPG title. T:ToN and BT4 sold badly because they sucked, not because they had turn-based combat (although in ToN case, it was really horrible).

This is exactly what I was trying to say here. Neither D:OS2's good sales nor T:ToN/BT4's poor sales have much if anything to do with TB combat. There is no correlation.

 

Separately, if you look at people's comments. either here or in other forums, RTwP fans will usually say something along the lines of: I (much) prefer RTwP, but I don't mind playing some TB games (which is my own position). By contrast, TB fans will usually say: I won't touch the game unless it has TB combat.

 

A side note on @Manveru123's T:ToN comment: I liked and enjoyed playing T:ToN. I found the story interesting, liked most of what was in the game, and my only issue was with how very short/small the game was. And in parallel, I only recently played Ps:T for the first time, as a prelude to playing T:ToN, and found Ps:T utterly boring and silly. I've long heard these forum stories about the "incredible story" and "amazing companions" in Ps:T and was extremely disappointed.

Edited December 24, 2018 by kanisatha

[kanisatha]

 

i could go on about bg1 for ages and ages and ages. its become my 'comfort' game. god knows why. theres nothing it does that other games havent done better. for some reason it just helps me forget myself.

 

Oh yeah, I should have specified BG2 EE and not 1, but I guess I really should just go play BG1 first even though people recommend skipping straight to 2.

I hope you won't skip 1. I have always found 1 to be way more interesting and fun than 2.

[InsaneCommander]

i could go on about bg1 for ages and ages and ages. its become my 'comfort' game. god knows why. theres nothing it does that other games havent done better. for some reason it just helps me forget myself.

 

Oh yeah, I should have specified BG2 EE and not 1, but I guess I really should just go play BG1 first even though people recommend skipping straight to 2.

 

I actually was going to play an archer, I was just torn between picking a Bard or a Ranger archer. People also said archers in BG2 weren't nearly as broken as they apparently were in 1, but eh.

 

Play the first one. It's really nice to experience the journey all the way from level 1 to where you get in the end.

[Triple - A Foxy Lad]

Oh yeah, I should have specified BG2 EE and not 1, but I guess I really should just go play BG1 first even though people recommend skipping straight to 2.

 

I actually was going to play an archer, I was just torn between picking a Bard or a Ranger archer. People also said archers in BG2 weren't nearly as broken as they apparently were in 1, but eh.

 

 

this correct. bg2 is mid to high level campaign. is where mages become prominent and archers fall off. ur melee characters eventually get access to nasty on-hit items like celestial fury and flail of ages etc. so they can be more impactful.

 

pls no go bard or ranger. stick with pure class fighter for an archer type - esp for bg1. rangers are gimped fighters and bards are gimped mages. for bg2, rangers at least get the free dual wielding proficiencies but pure fighters still outclass them in pretty much all instances. a pure class elven fighter with 18/xx STR 19 DEX, 17 CON and 3+ proficiency points in longsword and longbow will shift effortlessly between ranged and melee depending on point in campaign.

 

u could also consider the half-orc racial bonus to STR which is crazy powerful early game if u want to be more melee focused. it eventually becomes irrelevant late game in bg2/tob as even edwin gets a spare belt of hill giant strength - meanwhile the elven bonuses to longsword+bow become trivial, but never obsolete.

 

Play the first one. It's really nice to experience the journey all the way from level 1 to where you get in the end.

 

bg1's got a gentle, innocent vibe that's less widespread than is thought. the expansion 'tales of the sword coast' deserved more recognition imo. werewolf island is a great little stand-alone campaign. i found it both gripping and sad. durlags tower remains a yardstick crpg dungeon experience. 

 

it is true that bg2 was big leap forward, but bg1's far less pushy. it's a wistful, nostalgic game that was appealingly out of step, even in 1998 when it first dropped. id highly recommend starting with bg1 and treating the game as a means to slow down from a busy life and flick through the past. its very good for that.

 

Also mark me down as someone else who enjoyed T:ToN. i feel it worked better as a short story compilation rather than an epic tale. part of this due to numenera setting, i feel.

 

ive run it myself. for better or worse, the ninth world has no 'centre' beyond what a dm imposes on it. is telling that game required the confines of the bloom to really define its world. numenera better for small stories with closed arcs. not big ones.

 

I loved having the responsibility of protecting Rhin. the game allowed u to cripple ur partys effectiveness in return for the gratification of looking after a kid. the mechanical sacrifice u had to make was palpable and all the better for it. i felt real pride as she grew useful with experience... and i felt awful the first time she killed someone with a basic physical attack.

 

for me, she was the games masterstroke. i doubt i would have cared half as much otherwise. without going into too much detail, theres one particular ending where roles are sort of reversed and the lost little girl becomes the parental figure - and she does it so readily that i found myself tearing up.

 

ah, i do get sentimental at times.

[protopersona]

 

 

 

 

I think it's cool that Obsidian is creating the option for those who prefer turn-based, though. Would be nice if turn-based game developers would make a similar accommodation.

 

If Deadfire gets a big enough sales boost from this though, all it's going to do is further reinforce the idea that turn based sells better than RTWP. Thus providing even less incentive for turn based games to add an optional real time mode.

But other recent TB RPGs have done poorly, sales-wise: T:ToN, BT4; and Realms Beyond barely made it across the line for its Kickstarter. TB comes across as being extra popular because TB fans tend to be much more vocal and insistent on their preference than RTwP fans.

Because what people don't seem to realize is that combat is not everything in an RPG title. T:ToN and BT4 sold badly because they sucked, not because they had turn-based combat (although in ToN case, it was really horrible).

This is exactly what I was trying to say here. Neither D:OS2's good sales nor T:ToN/BT4's poor sales have much if anything to do with TB combat. There is no correlation.

 

Separately, if you look at people's comments. either here or in other forums, RTwP fans will usually say something along the lines of: I (much) prefer RTwP, but I don't mind playing some TB games (which is my own position). By contrast, TB fans will usually say: I won't touch the game unless it has TB combat.

 

A side note on @Manveru123's T:ToN comment: I liked and enjoyed playing T:ToN. I found the story interesting, liked most of what was in the game, and my only issue was with how very short/small the game was. And in parallel, I only recently played Ps:T for the first time, as a prelude to playing T:ToN, and found Ps:T utterly boring and silly. I've long heard these forum stories about the "incredible story" and "amazing companions" in Ps:T and was extremely disappointed.

 

You say there's no correlation, but we aren't talking about the effect a turn based feature has on sales. We are talking about how companies interpret the sales of a turn based game.

 

Historically game publishers have no earthly clue what makes a game good or bad. Thus, they try to attach the sales situation to what features a game has. "Turn based games selling better = turn based makes a game good" is how they have historically seen it when compared to similar situations. Just like how every FPS game needed a multiplayer mode back in the day, even if it was just tacked on and bad. It's not about what makes the game good, but what they think is making a game sell more.

[juanval]

Turn based combat in PoE2 IS a reality.

 

In the codex forums you can see screenshots of the Cyclopedia, explaining different mechanics of Turn based combat mode: Rounds, Free action, Cast action, Initiative, even there is a weapon whose description is detaliled for turn based combat, showing "Initiative" parameter instead of "Recovery Time". Duration of spells works not in seconds, but in number of rounds. Very interesting shots.

 

I'm sure Obsidian is going to release turn-based combat mode for deadfire. Nice movement.

[Mirandel]

 

(you do not have to care about AI with TB).

I don't really understand why you'd think this. Turn-based games frequently have an overload of strategic decisions to make every action, and an AI script for such a game has to sort through all of those options, exactly as it would for a real-time game. Are Chess computers not AI?

 

Obviously plenty of turn-based games have extremely rudimentary AI (Fire Emblem I am looking at you), but that's not a requirement by any means.

 

Sorry, had to specify "companion AI". I guess you can add it (?) but what would be the point?

 

 

Ah. That actually might be a better fit for the franchise. I just have distinct memories seeing my friend play FF7 on his playstation and watching his character run 20 yards up to an enemy, hit him with a sword the size of a dinner table, and run back - only to have the enemy do the exact same thing. I remember thinking that it was one of the dumbest things I'd ever seen, because even at 12 I somehow innately understood the immersion-crushing wrongness of presenting a combat encounter that way.

Speaking as someone who's done a bit of fencing and a bit of grappling, RTwP hardly seems any less abstract to me. It still involves a lot of standing around doing nothing while waiting for your next action to come up. A lot of gamers who prefer real-time combat find the RTwP format just as immersion-breaking as you do turn-based for exactly the reasons you've stated - but clearly immersion doesn't come from realism for them either, because I've never seen a game implement real-time combat in a way that wasn't on some level surreal. What matters for the purposes of immersion isn't realism, but engagement with mechanics in such a way that abstractions become indistinguishable from the reality they're meant to allude to.

 

There is a difference: in RTwP you are only waiting for special attacks (well, depends of the system). And as early as BG1, game was able at least simulate continuous attack with animation. In TB character simply does not move a muscle out of turn. So, immersion-wise - RTwP beats TB. Speed-wise - it's not even a comparison

[InsaneCommander]

Turn based combat in PoE2 IS a reality.

 

In the codex forums you can see screenshots of the Cyclopedia, explaining different mechanics of Turn based combat mode: Rounds, Free action, Cast action, Initiative, even there is a weapon whose description is detaliled for turn based combat, showing "Initiative" parameter instead of "Recovery Time". Duration of spells works not in seconds, but in number of rounds. Very interesting shots.

 

I'm sure Obsidian is going to release turn-based combat mode for deadfire. Nice movement.

 

Yes, there was even stronger evidence when they released it in the last patch.

 

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/107406-turn-based-combat-in-deadfire/

[gkathellar]

 

 

(you do not have to care about AI with TB).

I don't really understand why you'd think this. Turn-based games frequently have an overload of strategic decisions to make every action, and an AI script for such a game has to sort through all of those options, exactly as it would for a real-time game. Are Chess computers not AI?

 

Obviously plenty of turn-based games have extremely rudimentary AI (Fire Emblem I am looking at you), but that's not a requirement by any means.

 

Sorry, had to specify "companion AI". I guess you can add it (?) but what would be the point?

 

I guess that's true. Personally, I always play RTwP games with companion AI off, so that would never occur to me.

 

That said, it's worth noting that in most RTwP games in my experience, AI scripting isn't really any different for companions than it is for enemies.

 

 

 

Ah. That actually might be a better fit for the franchise. I just have distinct memories seeing my friend play FF7 on his playstation and watching his character run 20 yards up to an enemy, hit him with a sword the size of a dinner table, and run back - only to have the enemy do the exact same thing. I remember thinking that it was one of the dumbest things I'd ever seen, because even at 12 I somehow innately understood the immersion-crushing wrongness of presenting a combat encounter that way.

Speaking as someone who's done a bit of fencing and a bit of grappling, RTwP hardly seems any less abstract to me. It still involves a lot of standing around doing nothing while waiting for your next action to come up. A lot of gamers who prefer real-time combat find the RTwP format just as immersion-breaking as you do turn-based for exactly the reasons you've stated - but clearly immersion doesn't come from realism for them either, because I've never seen a game implement real-time combat in a way that wasn't on some level surreal. What matters for the purposes of immersion isn't realism, but engagement with mechanics in such a way that abstractions become indistinguishable from the reality they're meant to allude to.

 

There is a difference: in RTwP you are only waiting for special attacks (well, depends of the system). And as early as BG1, game was able at least simulate continuous attack with animation. In TB character simply does not move a muscle out of turn. So, immersion-wise - RTwP beats TB. Speed-wise - it's not even a comparison

 

 

Of course there's a difference, and my intent was not to imply there was none. Varying styles of gameplay employ varying types and levels of abstraction. But I take issue with the notion that anything is intrinsically better than anything else for immersion (or anything else, really), only different. Some things work for some people, and some things work for other people.

 

Personally, when I see BG1 or PoE or PF:K "simulate continuous attack with animation," it looks like someone doing the monkey, not like someone fighting. Meanwhile, when I play a silly anime-esque turn-based game like Atelier Ayesha, I'm not bothered by the pauses in the action nearly so much as I'm engaged by the presence of actual visible footwork in the attack animations and the use of good cinematography to make the hits actually look like hits. It's not even the realism that does it for me - Ayesha's combat animations are visually satisfying but also deeply silly. One abstraction works for me and the other doesn't. I'm not right, and people who disagree with me are not wrong.

 

And to be clear, I'm not trying to look askance at the notion of analysis. It's interesting and (for designers in particular) potentially valuable to examine why these preference might exist, and how one might cater to one or another or even multiple such (where that's possible). RTwP, as a format, is itself the product of such analysis: it was an attempt to synthesize some of the virtues of turn-based RPGs and RTS games. But the moment you start saying, "this is better, this is more immersive, this is more fun," you stop doing analysis and start acting out a pattern of behavior that is replicated by fans of every style of gameplay without exception (hell, there are TTRPG fans who attack video games in general for not being "immersive" enough for one contrived reason or another).  It's useful to say, "this is why I like the thing I like," but it's maybe less useful to say, "this is why the thing I like is better than the thing other people like."

[kanisatha]

 

 

 

 

 

I think it's cool that Obsidian is creating the option for those who prefer turn-based, though. Would be nice if turn-based game developers would make a similar accommodation.

 

If Deadfire gets a big enough sales boost from this though, all it's going to do is further reinforce the idea that turn based sells better than RTWP. Thus providing even less incentive for turn based games to add an optional real time mode.

But other recent TB RPGs have done poorly, sales-wise: T:ToN, BT4; and Realms Beyond barely made it across the line for its Kickstarter. TB comes across as being extra popular because TB fans tend to be much more vocal and insistent on their preference than RTwP fans.

Because what people don't seem to realize is that combat is not everything in an RPG title. T:ToN and BT4 sold badly because they sucked, not because they had turn-based combat (although in ToN case, it was really horrible).

This is exactly what I was trying to say here. Neither D:OS2's good sales nor T:ToN/BT4's poor sales have much if anything to do with TB combat. There is no correlation.

 

Separately, if you look at people's comments. either here or in other forums, RTwP fans will usually say something along the lines of: I (much) prefer RTwP, but I don't mind playing some TB games (which is my own position). By contrast, TB fans will usually say: I won't touch the game unless it has TB combat.

 

A side note on @Manveru123's T:ToN comment: I liked and enjoyed playing T:ToN. I found the story interesting, liked most of what was in the game, and my only issue was with how very short/small the game was. And in parallel, I only recently played Ps:T for the first time, as a prelude to playing T:ToN, and found Ps:T utterly boring and silly. I've long heard these forum stories about the "incredible story" and "amazing companions" in Ps:T and was extremely disappointed.

 

You say there's no correlation, but we aren't talking about the effect a turn based feature has on sales. We are talking about how companies interpret the sales of a turn based game.

 

Historically game publishers have no earthly clue what makes a game good or bad. Thus, they try to attach the sales situation to what features a game has. "Turn based games selling better = turn based makes a game good" is how they have historically seen it when compared to similar situations. Just like how every FPS game needed a multiplayer mode back in the day, even if it was just tacked on and bad. It's not about what makes the game good, but what they think is making a game sell more.

So then how are these developers interpreting TB games that sell poorly? Going off of your line above: Turn based games selling worse = what?

 

Essentially you're saying if a TB game does well, it must be because it's TB. But if a TB game does poorly, it must be because of any other factor than that it is TB. That's rather convenient. Any developer interpreting things this way would soon be out of business.

[Mirandel]

Personally, I always play RTwP games with companion AI off, so that would never occur to me.

 

That said, it's worth noting that in most RTwP games in my experience, AI scripting isn't really any different for companions than it is for enemies.

And yet it has to be programmed in separately, meaning, more work (and testing!). Had to mention too, that "companion AI" for me means a possibility of scripting on user side. But even without it, somehow it's a separate feature.

 

 

And to be clear, I'm not trying to look askance at the notion of analysis. It's interesting and (for designers in particular) potentially valuable to examine why these preference might exist, and how one might cater to one or another or even multiple such (where that's possible). RTwP, as a format, is itself the product of such analysis: it was an attempt to synthesize some of the virtues of turn-based RPGs and RTS games. But the moment you start saying, "this is better, this is more immersive, this is more fun," you stop doing analysis and start acting out a pattern of behavior that is replicated by fans of every style of gameplay without exception (hell, there are TTRPG fans who attack video games in general for not being "immersive" enough for one contrived reason or another). It's useful to say, "this is why I like the thing I like," but it's maybe less useful to say, "this is why the thing I like is better than the thing other people like."

Would not call my choice "better". I might argue about realism and immersion, but you are right - in game (any game yet) it's still such a subjective things, it's like arguing about tastes. However, time management IS on the side of RTwP. I'd say that is pretty much objective. Which dictates a very different encounters arrangements in a game and leads to the difference in game structure. TB (to me) feels like traveling from one huge puzzle to another, rather than a fluent free walk through the location. Too many "solid points". It's nothing but a feeling, but also influences my preferences.

[protopersona]

So then how are these developers interpreting TB games that sell poorly? Going off of your line above: Turn based games selling worse = what?

 

Essentially you're saying if a TB game does well, it must be because it's TB. But if a TB game does poorly, it must be because of any other factor than that it is TB. That's rather convenient. Any developer interpreting things this way would soon be out of business.

 

I'm not gonna sit here and claim I have all the answers. My point has little to do with the success or failure of other games. Especially in a time where games like Final Fantasy 15 and the newest Tomb Raider series can sell millions and still be "disappointing."

 

If a game has a big surge in sales after adding a turn-based mode, I don't think publishers are going to go "Wow, I guess they did make a good game after all, it just needed time to catch on." I'm pretty sure the response is going to be "The turn based feature moved more units, maybe we should invest more in that." I was really only speaking in terms of this game's possible situation, and I could have made that clearer.

[juanval]

Now that we know that Obsidian is developing turn based mode, it would be interesting if they post an update telling the comunity if turn based mode is both for consoles and PC.

[Archaven]

This is a bummer to me. I prefer RTwP. This akin in making a fast paced shooting game into car racing. the effort and resources needed can be used for fixing the game especially bugs. Folk who wanted a turn based game should play a turn based game.

[kanisatha]

I agree with @Mirandel's and others' arguments about immersion. TB definitely breaks immersion for me and is very jarring and unnatural.

 

Let's keep in mind that in reality all games in this broad genre involving exploring and roleplaying within one's environment are in fact real time (with or without pause). It is only the combat part of the game that is turn based or not. Therefore, RT is clearly the natural default for such games, and it is logical that it would be so for precisely immersion reasons. So then the question for me is why, within a game, do we need to break from RT immersion and switch to TB just when we encounter enemies, especially when RT can include a pause function?

 

Some argue because it makes combat more "tactical." I would counter that combat is/can be just as tactical in RT. All of the tactical elements of combat that I encountered in D:OS I also very much encountered in PoE. The difference between RTwP and TB during combat is only in the player's ability to successfully manage those tactical elements. It seems to me that some people are able to manage handling multiple things simultaneously, whereas others are comfortable handling those multiple things only sequentially.

[Wormerine]

Some argue because it makes combat more "tactical." I would counter that combat is/can be just as tactical in RT. All of the tactical elements of combat that I encountered in D:OS I also very much encountered in PoE. The difference between RTwP and TB during combat is only in the player's ability to successfully manage those tactical elements. It seems to me that some people are able to manage handling multiple things simultaneously, whereas others are comfortable handling those multiple things only sequentially.

I am surprised people talk about immersion on abstract isometric game. But anyway.

 

There is more to turn based than “players ability to process informations”. I am curious how TB mode might work in PoE2 as originally (D&D) the system was turn based. The number based combat does seem to be a better fit for real time - after all when player is supposed to analyse multiple stats and analyse rolls, and that isn’t very intuitive in Real-time. In addition TB could do something funky with initiation and turn order giving the game extra depth.

[Archaven]

RTwP has better weight in % chance, proc rate and attack speed. TB can only mimic by having more actions per turn. Unless it has something like 6 hit per turn which can greatly increase the proc chance mechanics. But that doesn't make sense and mostly game breaking to have so many attacks per turn. Even it's an active skill.

 

Also, you have so many skills, abilities, consumables and you often having only 1 or few actions per turn. It limits down to casting the best actions per turn. Very restrictive compared to RTwP. And that's not so tactical IMO.

Edited December 28, 2018 by Archaven

[ShadySands]

I hope they officially release it. My least favorite thing about these games is RTwP.

[Mikeymoonshine]

Wait was this taken out because I created a new game recently and this screen came up with the option of either.

 

Didn't choose tb cos I prefer rtwp, sometimes a tb system is ok for me but usually I find it dull to play.

[protopersona]

Wait was this taken out because I created a new game recently and this screen came up with the option of either.

 

Didn't choose tb cos I prefer rtwp, sometimes a tb system is ok for me but usually I find it dull to play.

Yes, it was quickly patched out the day it leaked.

[Corodix]

RTwP has better weight in % chance, proc rate and attack speed. TB can only mimic by having more actions per turn. Unless it has something like 6 hit per turn which can greatly increase the proc chance mechanics. But that doesn't make sense and mostly game breaking to have so many attacks per turn. Even it's an active skill.

 

Also, you have so many skills, abilities, consumables and you often having only 1 or few actions per turn. It limits down to casting the best actions per turn. Very restrictive compared to RTwP. And that's not so tactical IMO.

 

Not necessarily true. I think that the mistake you're making is that you are assuming that each character will have 1 turn in something like 1 round. But there's no need for a system based on rounds. A much better fit in this case would be to determine when your next turn happens based on your recovery speed. That way the flow of combat would be quite similar to RTwP and having many skills becomes a non issue.