Turn order similar to Final Fantasy X

[Madscientist]

I have not read every thread in here, so maybe somebody already suggested something similar.

 

FFX is turn based (each char acts after the other and you have all the time in the world to select commands) but it does not have global turns.

Each char has a speed value and chars with higher speed act more often. Each action has a recovery time that depends on the type of action and the speed value. Spells have a casting time and a recovery time.

FFX does not have movement during combat. I suggest if you move from A to B during your turn, the time it takes to move that distance is added to your recovery time.

 

Advantage:

Durations for things can remain unchanged from rtwp mode. Recovery times, casting times and effect duration can stay as they are.

 

Give an initiative value to each char. Once a char has its first action, turn order is determined by action/recovery/casting/movement time.

I think initiative should be determined by dex value and armor, as it is now.

All chars start their first action at the same moment, initiative only determines who acts first in this starting moment but time stands still until each char has acted for the first time.

 

So the game still counts everything in seconds, not rounds. Each time the recovery time for a char ends, time stops and you can select what this char should do until his/her next recovery time ends.

You could do several very fast actions in a row or you select a very long action and enemies can act several times in the meantime.

Regarding interrupts: If you get interrupted, casting time ends, recovery time starts and you can act again when recovery is over.

One more thing: The recovery time in turn based mode would be recovery+action time in rtwp. So if you attack with your weapon, you can act again once all other chars have acted who could act in your action+recovery time.

 

There would be some differences to rtwp:

- Several chars cannot move or act at the same time.

- You cannot cancel an action and select something else at any time

- Slow weapons could have an advantage. You still have to wait longer until you can act again compared to fast weapons, but you hit at the beginning of your attack time, not at the end.

[Elric Galad]

Yup, I've posted the same idea in the Announcement and News subforums :
https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/108058-update-60-patch-41-turn-based-mode-beta/

But your version is much more detailed !

 

I honnestly think that would be the very best idea to implement quickly a balanced TB system and keeps he compatibility between TB and RTwP system (also for PoE3).

 

A few remarks or ideas :

- Reload should require a separate action from Attack. That's the best way to replicate the current RTwP reload.

- "Wait" commands should be possible. One should be able to Wait until another character turn, in order to interrupt its next action. This should be the only way to cancel "quick" actions such as Attacks or "Frenzy". True Instantaneous action such as "Wild Sprint" shouldn't be cancellable. I think this is the only way to make Interrupt relevant against martials.

 

 

EDIT : to be more clear, there could be 3 types of action :

 

- "Channeled" for each action with a current base action time >1.1s*, such as most spells, with a cast time and a recovery time equal to what they are now, interruptible during cast time.

- "Quick" for each action with a current base action time <=1.1s*, such as attacks, with an immediate effect and a recovery time equal to their current recovery + action time, interruptible only by a delayed Quick action.

- "Instantanneous" for each action with a current action time = 0s, such as weapon swapping, with a immediate effect and a recovery time equal to what they are now (most intantanneous actions have 0 recovery), not interruptible.

 

 

*1.1s is the base attack time of war bows, pistols and blunderbuss and also cast time for Blade Turning (I can't think of another ability with this cast time).

 

 

The "Quick" type might be a tiny bit complicated. My point is simply that there should be a way to interrupt attacks.

Edited February 1, 2019 by Elric Galad

[Madscientist]

First of all, I think we should not make it more complicated than nessesary.

Pathfinder uses its very complicated PnP rules (e.g. instant, swift, standart and full round actions), you need to read tons of rules if you want to play it and since the last PoE update the forums are full with: "Add turn based mode to PK too."

 

regarding your suggestions:

- Ok we could let you act after shooting with reloading weapons and then you can chose if you want to reload, change weapon or do something else. But you have to reload the weapon if you want to fire again.

- About wait to interrupt: Shadowrun dragonfall had such a mechanic. When you have AP left and a weapon that can be used (melee weapon or loaded ranged weapon) you can chose to end your turn and prepare to interrupt enemies. If an enemy moves into weapon range while you are in this mode, you will attack the enemy and the enemy will be interrupted.

OK, PoE is based in the IE games who are based on DnD and such a mechanic did never exist there.

(OK, in Pathfinder you can ready your spear and if an enemy charges at you he will get impaled. I am not sure if such a thing is in the computer game and if it already existed in DnD.)

 

It would be possible to add your suggestions in principle, but at the moment I do not think they are absolutely needed.

[Elric Galad]

- Yup, of course. You still need to reload before firing again.

 

- Not sure the way I described is the best solution. Instantanneous and "channeled" type already exists in the current TB Version. The idea was to provide a Type of action that has the following requirements :

  - is interruptible.

  - takes place immediately. Because having to wait between the time you decide the attack and the time the attack happens feels weird, especially if several attacks happen within a short delay.

[jrocket]

It would take even longer to play turn based if you had a literal translation of real time rules. Take a whole turn to reload your gun? No thanks. A better solution that was already posted here would be an action point system where more action speed == more action points and you retain any left-over action points on your next turn.

[Elric Galad]

It would take even longer to play turn based if you had a literal translation of real time rules. Take a whole turn to reload your gun? No thanks. A better solution that was already posted here would be an action point system where more action speed == more action points and you retain any left-over action points on your next turn.

 

We're discussing here about a system without any "combat round" at all.

 

Have you played FF10 ? Heroes of Might & Magic V also had a similar system. Have you read the initial post ?

[Crumbleton]

You're making it more confusing than it needs to be imo. The normal base game IS like final fantasy or an dynamic system because it is.

 

The base game just removes the pause at the end of the action, what hrs saying is true if they just directly do that the turn based mode will be super slow without changes.

[mostundesired]

You're making it more confusing than it needs to be imo. The normal base game IS like final fantasy or an dynamic system because it is.

 

The base game just removes the pause at the end of the action, what hrs saying is true if they just directly do that the turn based mode will be super slow without changes.

Running into you everywhere, huh?

 

It's not the same, for reasons explained above and in every other thread that's discussed this. If anything, RTWP is closer to an ATB system than "dynamic" turn based. Combat would take longer, though.

[Crumbleton]

I meant an ATB and dynamic turn are the the same system it's just an inversed gage that grows instead of recovers it's functionally the same though.

 

I just mean I read all these post with quite long explanations of how that system works and it's like... Yeah that's how it works in the base game really just in real time.

 

I mean the more I think of it there arent many super elegant solutions so I'm excited to see which direction they go.

 

I definitely would like to see combats be a little shorter in general in turn based though

[Madscientist]

The reason why I chose a system similar to FFX is the following:

In PoE the duration for abilities is dependent on lots of things, such as intelligence, action speed, power level and so on.

If the basic time unit is a turn, increasing or decreasing int or dex does nothing unless it increases or decreases the duration by 1 turn. This means in many cases that changing int, dex or power level will have no effect at all. And this is what I see in many comments here in the forum. People complain that some stats have almost no effect and they discuss something like 1 turn for and ability feels to short but 2 turns feels too long.

 

We avoid these problems if we keep the besic time unit as seconds, because PoE was designed for it.

Yes, FFX combat means that we play the normal rtwp mode with an auto pause every time a party member has finished an action and the units act one after the other, not simultanously.

[Madscientist]

The IE games were based on DnD.

DnD is turn based and 1 turn is 6 seconds.

So every ability is instantanious or it has a duration that is a multiple of 6 seconds.

 

Turn based combat is alwas slower than real time combat [citation needed].

In order to speed things up, the IE games kept the 6 second as turn, but chars kept on doing what they did (attacking, moving, . . . ) until you gave them a different command.

Pauses were only needed when you wanted to give them new commands every round.

 

PoE is inspired by the IE games, but it is not based on DnD. The devs ignored the 6 second turn unit and gave abilities whatever duration they wanted in seconds.

Going back to turn based messes up everything. In PoE each point of something gives a linear bonus (e.g. 1 point int gives +5% duration). If we go back to turn based from this, all these small influences become irrelevant.

[Crumbleton]

Yeah I know, I think action speed is the only non linear thing and it's why everything's wo wonky.

 

What I'm saying is that the ATB is just PoE that pauses before the action is taken its not really another system it's just an addition pause.

 

I mean at that point, what's the point of the turn based mode?

 

I'd rather see them wing something crazy that's balanced differently instead of the base game 10000X slower.

 

Edit: I will add for stuff like int I'm not sure there is a great solution, with PL stuff does scale faster and you do get the other benefits, maybe they can increase the other benefits more in TB I have no idea!

Edited February 2, 2019 by Crumbleton

[Triple - A Foxy Lad]

Just want to give a +1 to the Final Fantasy X approach. im no game dev but it seems like most obvious solution to this cat. i feel it warrants serious consideration even if it gets thrown out for whatever reason.

[mostundesired]

Yeah I know, I think action speed is the only non linear thing and it's why everything's wo wonky.

 

What I'm saying is that the ATB is just PoE that pauses before the action is taken its not really another system it's just an addition pause.

 

I mean at that point, what's the point of the turn based mode?

 

I'd rather see them wing something crazy that's balanced differently instead of the base game 10000X slower.

 

Edit: I will add for stuff like int I'm not sure there is a great solution, with PL stuff does scale faster and you do get the other benefits, maybe they can increase the other benefits more in TB I have no idea!

You seem to not be understanding something. ATB and the FFX-like system people are suggesting are not the same. To say they are is, for lack of better word, ignorant. ATB has everyone taking their turn independent of each other, thus why I compared it to RTWP. The FFX-like system does not have that. You don't act whenever you feel like it independent of the actions of others. You have to wait. To say that RTWP is the same system but without automatic pause is to dismiss all the critical nuances of having everyone act indepedent of each other. It makes a huge difference. If you just outright ignore it, I don't know how you expect to have a serious conversation on the topic.

[Crumbleton]

 

Yeah I know, I think action speed is the only non linear thing and it's why everything's wo wonky.

 

What I'm saying is that the ATB is just PoE that pauses before the action is taken its not really another system it's just an addition pause.

 

I mean at that point, what's the point of the turn based mode?

 

I'd rather see them wing something crazy that's balanced differently instead of the base game 10000X slower.

 

Edit: I will add for stuff like int I'm not sure there is a great solution, with PL stuff does scale faster and you do get the other benefits, maybe they can increase the other benefits more in TB I have no idea!

You seem to not be understanding something. ATB and the FFX-like system people are suggesting are not the same. To say they are is, for lack of better word, ignorant. ATB has everyone taking their turn independent of each other, thus why I compared it to RTWP. The FFX-like system does not have that. You don't act whenever you feel like it independent of the actions of others. You have to wait. To say that RTWP is the same system but without automatic pause is to dismiss all the critical nuances of having everyone act indepedent of each other. It makes a huge difference. If you just outright ignore it, I don't know how you expect to have a serious conversation on the topic.

Woa calm down with the agression there, you misunderstood what I said. ATB is the same as the base PoE system it just pauses when the action gauge hits 0, when I say PoE I mean RTWP that's why I didn't make a distinction of it being outside the base game mode. I mean I feel they could just add a pause box that you can click that says "pause when recovery hits 0" and that would be the ATB system.

 

The ATB system will be really slow, really really slow, rounds are fine they just need to find a decent TTK, and to work out the kinks.

 

I just find it funny how peoole go into big explanations of things like the ATB system and don't seem to realize it's the same system of RTWP just with no pause when recovery hits 0 (the action bar filling up)

[mostundesired]

Woa calm down with the agression there, you misunderstood what I said. ATB is the same as the base PoE system it just pauses when the action gauge hits 0, when I say PoE I mean RTWP that's why I didn't make a distinction of it being outside the base game mode. I mean I feel they could just add a pause box that you can click that says "pause when recovery hits 0" and that would be the ATB system.

 

The ATB system will be really slow, really really slow, rounds are fine they just need to find a decent TTK, and to work out the kinks.

 

I just find it funny how peoole go into big explanations of things like the ATB system and don't seem to realize it's the same system of RTWP just with no pause when recovery hits 0 (the action bar filling up)

I'm calm, I'm just running out of ways to say it. Apologies if my bluntness seems aggressive. I'll try to explain better:

 

You said earlier that ATB and dynamic turns are the same but inversed. That's only true of the mechanic to determine turn order, ATB doesn't pause everyone else. Dynamic/FFX does. Important distinction.

 

Then after that, you asked what would be the point of doing ATB since that would just be the same as the base game. I guess I got confused, since no one suggested changing the game to ATB, so sorry about that.

 

But the important thing I meant to respond to was you said you'd rather they change the system to a new thing instead of playing just a slower Deadfire, and I guess I assumed the conversation regressed back to having to explain that FFX-like turnbased wouldn't just be slower Deadfire. So were you just speaking in hyperbole and it flew over my head? Because otherwise, I was reading it as "FFX=Inversed ATB, and ATB=RTWP, therefore FFX=RTWP."

 

Words are hard. Anyway, the big explanations and nitpicking aren't because people aren't realizing the similarity, it's because the small differences could screw up the game and mechanics on a fundamental level, which we're trying to avoid obviously. I suppose expectations are the issue here, since some are expecting only the very minor but game-altering change of "everyone takes turns," and others expect an entire overhaul (rounds, actions per turn, etc).

 

And personally, the more I think about it, the less an overhaul in that manner makes sense. Like taking the pieces of a table and putting them together into a chair. Everything's connected awkwardly and you have too many leftover pieces.

[Crumbleton]

I mean ATB is the deadfire mode minus the pause before the action waiting for the input because at least what I recall from ff10 there isn't vector style targeting and what not. The underlying system would be the same except movement needs to be accounted for.

 

I mean ultimately we'll see what the des do it'll be interesting either way I just want turns condensed a bit because as it stands now battles take forever. Doing a ton of small damage attacks that's switch between your characters isn't really exciting gameplay imo l. If you make an AA based character or one who has minimum skull usage the time it takes to switch from an enemy back to him would become tedious. I think even FFX had multi attacks but I haven't played that or blitz ball since I had my ps2 and was young so maybe I'm forgetting nuances.

 

Now I'm thinking about how much I enjoyed legend of dragoon let's bring that battle style back!

[protopersona]

 

 

Yeah I know, I think action speed is the only non linear thing and it's why everything's wo wonky.

 

What I'm saying is that the ATB is just PoE that pauses before the action is taken its not really another system it's just an addition pause.

 

I mean at that point, what's the point of the turn based mode?

 

I'd rather see them wing something crazy that's balanced differently instead of the base game 10000X slower.

 

Edit: I will add for stuff like int I'm not sure there is a great solution, with PL stuff does scale faster and you do get the other benefits, maybe they can increase the other benefits more in TB I have no idea!

You seem to not be understanding something. ATB and the FFX-like system people are suggesting are not the same. To say they are is, for lack of better word, ignorant. ATB has everyone taking their turn independent of each other, thus why I compared it to RTWP. The FFX-like system does not have that. You don't act whenever you feel like it independent of the actions of others. You have to wait. To say that RTWP is the same system but without automatic pause is to dismiss all the critical nuances of having everyone act indepedent of each other. It makes a huge difference. If you just outright ignore it, I don't know how you expect to have a serious conversation on the topic.

Woa calm down with the agression there, you misunderstood what I said. ATB is the same as the base PoE system it just pauses when the action gauge hits 0, when I say PoE I mean RTWP that's why I didn't make a distinction of it being outside the base game mode. I mean I feel they could just add a pause box that you can click that says "pause when recovery hits 0" and that would be the ATB system.

 

The ATB system will be really slow, really really slow, rounds are fine they just need to find a decent TTK, and to work out the kinks.

 

I just find it funny how peoole go into big explanations of things like the ATB system and don't seem to realize it's the same system of RTWP just with no pause when recovery hits 0 (the action bar filling up)

 

ATB is NOT equal to RTwP with enforced pauses. Neither is the FFX initiative system. Pausing is not the same as turns.

 

In RTwP everything acts simultaneously. This is the distinction of RTwP that actually matters, actions can go off at the same time. Multiple things can hit at the same time and essentially one shot you with no chance of a response. So many things can fire off quickly enough that you have to read the log just to know what happened.

 

In a turn based system, even the FFX one, actions have a strict order. No 2 actions can ever occur at the same time. Combined with the turn order indicator you have a much easier time responding to things or just tracking the battle as it happens.

 

A lack of distinct rounds does not make things suddenly a slower version of RTwP. The act of making actions happen in a linear order changes the game. Rounds are not nessecary for this. Dropping them would make TB mode not only work better in the context of this engine, but save the devs a lot of time and effort.

[Madscientist]

total agreement with protopersona.

 

As I have written in my initial post, one difference between turn based and rtwp is, that in rtwp several things can happen at the same time while in turn based combat one thing happens after the other.

Regarding this issue it does not matter if time in a turn based mode is measured in global rounds or with a continous time.

 

PoE measures time in seconds, not in rounds.

If you translate PoE rtwp to turn based, I think it is easier to translate it to the FFX system than to a system with global rounds.

A rtwp game whose game mechanics are still based on rounds ( e.g. Pathfinder Kingmaker or the IE games) you can easily translate it to turn based with global rounds.

The result would be Temple of elemental Evil.

Edited February 3, 2019 by Madscientist

[Crumbleton]

Yeah actions can go off at the same time that's true, the underlying system is still pretty much the same. You just have it when 2 actions occur simultaneously one gets priority based on X. Whether it be dex score or favored to player or enemies.

 

Now the huge problem with this initiative based system is going to be combats against larger swarms of enemies. FFX is based around low numbers of enemies, now imagine the mode like it is now where against large swarms you're going to bounce back and forth forever taking single actions. The benefit of a round based mode is you're able to fill in more actions on a turn (potentially) and hopefully shorten these encounters.

 

Do you really want to control a single auto attack, wait for enemy to change , bounce back, and auto attack again? Being able to fit multiple actions on a turn kind of NEEDS to be a thing or TTK will just be super tedious like it is currently

[Elric Galad]

This is a valid question.

I still remember the painful battles of Tides of Numenerra at the ends of Act 2&3.

 

However, IMHO, it can be mostly addressed by increasing the speed of ennemies' animation and/or health reduction (which can be made optional. I expect megabosses to be harder if both players and them get something like -25%/-50% health).

[mostundesired]

Yeah actions can go off at the same time that's true, the underlying system is still pretty much the same. You just have it when 2 actions occur simultaneously one gets priority based on X. Whether it be dex score or favored to player or enemies.

 

Now the huge problem with this initiative based system is going to be combats against larger swarms of enemies. FFX is based around low numbers of enemies, now imagine the mode like it is now where against large swarms you're going to bounce back and forth forever taking single actions. The benefit of a round based mode is you're able to fill in more actions on a turn (potentially) and hopefully shorten these encounters.

 

Do you really want to control a single auto attack, wait for enemy to change , bounce back, and auto attack again? Being able to fit multiple actions on a turn kind of NEEDS to be a thing or TTK will just be super tedious like it is currently

Fair point. Personally, though, I'd rather if be done that way. I remember a specific encounter in Divinity OS 2 where about 12 or more blob enemies were summoned all at once. I would take my actions, then have to wait while each and every one of them took their turn. Rather than tedious, it filled me with dread--the good, video gamey kind where you feel great when you win.

 

Although to be fair, action points meant my characters could do more than one thing per turn, but the way it played out, it didn't feel like I was doing a whole lot at once. Two or three attacks, maybe, and it still took me quite a few turns to kill just one of them. Point being, swarms won't be that bad so long as they feel like a legitimate threat and/or achievement, and they figure out the damage to turn ratio. I said in another thread that low level accuracy might be a huge contributor to the tedium, and IIRC someone said that once you start having enough accuracy to hit regularly, it feels better.

 

So I think multiple actions per turn or multiple reoccurring turns could both fix the tedium issue. The former for reasons said before, and the latter because you'll be doing something more frequently (at least the high dex characters). Take that with a grain of salt, though.

[Crumbleton]

Yeah I mean when I was running an assassin/sharpshooter with the arequebus and the modal it wasnt an issue but that's just crazy high accuracy.

 

Haven't played DOS2 yet it's on my backlog I love the first.

 

Yeah I know the feel, I remember getting a ton of stuff angry at me in the first and watching enemies barreling down on me from the fog of war was spooky. I enjoy that sort of thing though.

[Madscientist]

OK, I think that turn based combat will always be slower than real time unless you select absolutely every auto pause option in rtwp.

 

Torment Tides of Numenera was slow as hell. But that was not only because it was turn based, but also how they did it.

 

FFX was one of the faster turn based games, even most boss fights were rather short if you knew what you are doing.

This was because:

- There were less units involved. You had up to 3 characters and up to 4 enemies. You could call a summon and it would replace all party members, not fight together with them.

- Most enemies could be killed with one hit. Even tougher enemies could only take a few hits. With the right tactics ( attacks with multiple hits, exploit elemental weakness ) you could kill bosses very fast. Often I did not kill all enemies as fast as possible so that every party member gets exp. ( You could switch party members during combat and only party members who did something during combat get exp)

- The game did not have combat movement or positioning.

 

Yesterday I fought the bosses of BoW and SSS in rtwp mode. In rtwp it took lots of hits to kill a boss. This was OK because all my chars were attacking at the same time I used summons who also attacked at the same time. I also used attacks that hit several enemies or that hit one enemy several times.

 

In a turn based game, you (and the enemy) need much less attacks to kill the target. In most good turn based games I know you can kill normal enemies with about 2-4 normal attacks. Special attacks or attacks that target their weakness can one shot them. If it takes more than 5 hits to kill something or there is a high miss chance, combat can take forever and become boring. A bad example is Wild Arms 3, where some bosses ( especially the optional ones) have tons of hit points and you just repeat attacks and healing forever.

 

result:

Going from rtwp to turn based is not just about how to translate real time combat to turns and how to determine turn order.

You also have to change damage of attacks, HP of units, what some abilities do and the number of units.

Else it will become very slow and some stats or abilities will become useless or OP.

Adding turns is not enough, you have to balance everything almost from scatch.

 

One more advice: Do not add delay attacks.

These are attacks that push enemies back in turn order or make them skip their next turn.

They are OP in the Trails of cold Steel series (and maybe some other games) where you can prevent most enemies from acting at all.

Hard CC so that enemies cannot act on their turn is fine, but please no stuff that messes with the turn order itself.

[Crumbleton]

So you want them to remove interrupts from turn based mode?