how is TB mode after patc 5?

[Ancelor]

I was excited to hear that POE will introduce a TB mode.

Excited to the point that my game is sitting in my PC for months and I'm waiting for the devs to finalize all additions.

I ve been reading new regarding the progress and I understand that all major patches are done with.

So how is TB mode now? I appreciate answers from people who are not negative towards it (since they would give bad feedback in any case).

P.S. It's a shame that there are no changes to DEX as far as I've read

[Wormerine]

I liked TB mode even in beta. I didn't play too much of 5.0, but I feel a bit disappointed by how little it has changed. It's been polished (some abilities rebalanced, tooltips work properly etc.) but underlying issues with the system haven't been addressed.
 

I would say, it is good enough for a playthrough, if you prefer TB, over RTwP, or like me, don't want to deal with stutter during RTwP combat. Depending on how deep you engage with mechanics one might not even be bothered by issues TB combat has. I do consider it, to be inferior however, as it breaks some of the core principles of PoE system.

[Novem]

While I can't compare to how it was before, as this patch was the first time I played it, it's just not very good. That's not to say it isn't enjoyable, it benefits from many of the strengths that Pillars of Eternity II already has as a game, but it also undermines many of those strengths with the mechanical approach it decided to take. The attribute system is way more rigid than a Pillars attribute system should be, focusing the system around min-maxing alike to other games. You're almost completely limited to one action per turn (since there's no AP system or ability to trade your movement for an action), preventing many characters from taking advantage of effects they themselves inflict and overall just making the combat far less dynamic than it is in real-time. Health and damage values are clearly tuned for real-time play, which causes combat in even easier encounters to drag (as you just straight up output less damage in turn-based than RTWP), and I imagine would massively increase the game's run-time.

I have to agree with Wormerine's assessment that it's just a straight up inferior experience. I'm sure there are people out there who can and will enjoy it, so I'm glad it's in the game, but if you're choosing between the two or don't plan to go through the game multiple times, just play real-time. Turn-Based, for as much as I usually really enjoy Turn-Based games, is not worth the loss in the complexity of Pillars buildcraft, the slog of the longer encounters, or the reduced depth of many of combat's core mechanics.

[mychal26]

I'm going to have to agree: turn based is very disappointing as is. Since it was in beta so long I assumed they were incorporating feedback, but I guess not. What's truly frustrating is the pushing of party members by moving other party members near them, and the same goes for enemies as well. How can you play tactically (which is what turn based should be about) when characters positions aren't fixed. It's so bizarre, and a big letdown.

[Ancelor]

Back to RTWP then it seems

[Wormerine]

3 hours ago, Ancelor said:

Back to RTWP then it seems

I would always recommend to make your own mind. I loved it when it was first introduced. But after a bit of play some issues became apparent and it seems that addressing them would require a bit too much work.

[Ancelor]

8 minutes ago, Wormerine said:

I would always recommend to make your own mind. I loved it when it was first introduced. But after a bit of play some issues became apparent and it seems that addressing them would require a bit too much work.

if only the would add an action point system tied to DEX. That would be ideal for me

[Novem]

1 hour ago, Ancelor said:

if only the would add an action point system tied to DEX. That would be ideal for me

Honestly, I think the better idea would've been to make the combat system CTB-based rather than Initiative-based, because Pillars gameplay style would've far more directly adapted to such a system. Pillars mechanics were never designed around every person getting one action per round like in this tabletop-inspired Initiative system, each action is supposed to have a certain speed and incur a certain level of recovery time. You can do this in a CTB, so the effects of Pillars attributes wouldn't have to change and they would all be directly scalable in the same way they were in real-time. Higher dex would give characters more actions, more quickly. Intellect and Resolve could scale the duration of abilities based on the turns of individual characters rather than entire rounds, which makes both useless until you trigger specific break points. And they should've allowed you (and this part isn't even wholly necessary, just switching to CTB would address most of the problems so this is just my opinion) to trade your movement in a turn for an additional attack (or made attacks consume a chunk of your movement) so you don't feel like you're wasting a resource by standing there at the end of every action (and to keep damage output similar to real-time so the encounters didn't drag, and so "kiting" could be punished, etc).

Every one of the problems Turn-Based Mode has is a result of them awkwardly forcing mechanics into a structure they weren't designed for. Honestly I feel like if they were going to design a turn-based system this way, they should've based it on the tabletop game Sawyer was making instead of trying to force the game's mechanics into another format. Just my opinion though, because if they were working with a CTB, they would've only had to balance the game by tweaking numbers rather than overhauling entire mechanics and systems. If they make a Turn-Based Mode for POE3, I hope they look at doing that instead.

Edited May 13, 2019 by Novem

[Jayd]

8 hours ago, Novem said:

Honestly, I think the better idea would've been to make the combat system CTB-based

This is what I assumed turn-based was when I heard about it. I replayed Blue Dragon not long ago and action speed was extremely important in that turn-based combat. It also allows the interrupt system to translate without a problem. Question: how do interrupts work in Deadfire's TB mode? If everyone does an action each turn how can there be interrupts?

[IndiraLightfoot]

21 hours ago, mychal26 said:

I'm going to have to agree: turn based is very disappointing as is. Since it was in beta so long I assumed they were incorporating feedback, but I guess not. What's truly frustrating is the pushing of party members by moving other party members near them, and the same goes for enemies as well. How can you play tactically (which is what turn based should be about) when characters positions aren't fixed. It's so bizarre, and a big letdown.

Ouch! I've been looking forward to trying this out but just this annoyance mentioned here puts me off, and learning about the slight changes from the beta - which I've read have had plenty of issues regarding balancing the system for TB-play - forces my hand away from the play button. A pity - this TB ambition felt really great. 

[Wormerine]

1 hour ago, Jayd said:

Question: how do interrupts work in Deadfire's TB mode? If everyone does an action each turn how can there be interrupts?

Casting abilities take time, so characters acting between "character 1 initiated cast" and "character1 finished cast" can interupt it. 

[Yosharian]

I'd like to be the lone dissenter here and voice my appreciation for Deadfire's turn-based mode.

Initially, upon hearing of the new turn-based mode, I was extremely sceptical.  I figured it would make battles tedious, and slow down gameplay.  I imagined all the ways the game wouldn't be balanced anymore.  I assumed it would be half-baked.

Now those assumptions weren't entirely wrong.

1. The mode isn't entirely balanced.  There are some abilities that are way stronger than they used to be.  Dexterity is now a dump stat, for example.
2. Battles definitely require more patience, and it sometimes gets a little tedious waiting for enemies to take their turn.
3. Sometimes it feels like the mode hasn't been properly implemented.  There are tooltips that don't show round durations, instead showing old durations, for example.

However, I feel like they aren't deal breakers:

1. Deadfire has never been balanced anyway.  Resolve has always been a dump stat except for tanks, and even some tanks don't rely on it.  So is one more dump stat suddenly going to make Deadfire significantly worse?  I don't think so.  It does mean that you can't rely on RTWP theorycrafting/guides.  But I view this as a new challenge, something fun, rather than a negative.  It's a new meta, if you like.  Some are claiming that it 'ruins' Deadfire's mechanics, as if Deadfire's mechanics systems in RTWP are well-designed, and work really well together.  They don't.  There's very little to ruin, frankly.  The entire system is a mess, whether you play it in RTWP or TB.
2. I personally haven't found the tedium too much to handle.  And turn-based brings a new way of experiencing combat, one that allows individual actions and abilities to shine in a way that they just can't in RTWP.  You experience each action in greater detail than you might if there were umpteen other things happening at the same time.  However, I can't deny that occasionally, some battles are tedious, and on POTD sometimes it feels like you're attacking mountains of hitpoints.  So it balances out, and ultimately I find myself preferring TB.
3. A lot of the issues seem to have been changed or fixed.  I haven't played since 5.0 dropped, so I can't say for sure.  But, hopefully, it feels a lot more like it's part of the core experience, rather than something tacked on, despite the aforementioned balance issues.  That said, even prior to 5.0, when turn-based definitely felt tacked on, I still felt that it was an excellent addition to the game, and definitely worth experiencing.

Ultimately, I really think you should try out turn-based, and do so with an open mind.  You'll probably go back to RTWP, just like the others in this thread, but there's a chance you might like it, that it might breathe new life in to the game.

Personally I feel that Deadfire's combat is dramatically improved by turn-based, and I'm glad that they implemented it, warts-and-all.  And again, I say that as someone who was very sceptical about it, initially.

Edited May 14, 2019 by Yosharian

[Yosharian]

8 hours ago, Jayd said:

This is what I assumed turn-based was when I heard about it. I replayed Blue Dragon not long ago and action speed was extremely important in that turn-based combat. It also allows the interrupt system to translate without a problem. Question: how do interrupts work in Deadfire's TB mode? If everyone does an action each turn how can there be interrupts?

When you begin casting some abilities, a certain amount of time (measured by what's called Initiative in turn-based Deadfire) pass before the ability is cast.  Think of Initiative as being measured in units of time.

So an interrupt can prevent such an ability from being cast, and the ability is lost - that is to say, the resource that would have been spent to cast the ability is used up, and the ability fails.

However, many enemies that rely on such abilities have quite fast cast speed, and thus aren't easily-interruptable.  Sometimes you get the opportunity to interrupt enemies and prevent their casts.  This may happen more often if your Initiative (a measure of how fast you act in the round) is faster.  However, you don't have the ability to choose when, in the round, you take your action, aside from at your Initiative value, or at the end of the turn.  So if you get your turn before the caster, and he chooses to cast something that takes a bit of time but still finishes before the end of the turn, you don't get to interrupt him.  You could, however, stun him, or paralyze him, or whatever.  That would cause him to lose his turn.  Proning doesn't cause a wasted turn, but it grants attack bonuses to comrades who attack before the target stands up.

So Initiative, and Interrupts, are of dubious value, generally, although they could be useful in certain circumstances.

Bear in mind that stacks of Concentration prevent Interrupts, like in RTWP.

[Novem]

Quote

Deadfire has never been balanced anyway.

I don't know what game you're playing, but Deadfire is an extremely balanced game in RTWP, and your examples do not in any way prove otherwise. Resolve may be a dump stat, but it's nowhere near as severe a dump stat as Dexterity (which you can dump completely with no consequence) or even itself (both attributes which are reliant on duration are worse, not to mention that low defenses don't mean as much because you aren't being attacked nearly as much) in Turn-Based Mode. And well... that's the only substantive point you made to that effect so there's not much else to argue against.

Regardless, the suggestion that there's "very little to ruin" is absurd. Each attribute in real-time has value (yes, even Resolve). In Turn-Based, half of the attributes either suck or are worse in almost every situation unless you're gaming the system towards specific break points. This irrevocably makes combat worse, because the problem isn't just that you "can't follow build guides" anymore, it's that there are much fewer good and viable builds to begin with. Equipment choice has been similarly damaged, since Initiative is only situationally useful, unlike the original Action Speed which was always useful (meaning balance-wise there's almost no reason not to dump your Dex and then throw Heavy Armor onto most of your characters). Turn-Based also rewards extremely cheesy strategies like kiting with ranged characters and just generally running around like an idiot because there's nothing that really punishes you from moving around all the time when attacking and even if you dump your Dexterity you generally still have more than enough Stride to outrun monsters for a little bit (except for the faster ones, I'm sure). It has a LOT of issues that the original version of the game (even beyond this, and this is just the stuff I had marked down after the first HOUR of playing TBM, I'm sure there are many more nuanced flaws) didn't have because the original mechanics were actually designed to operate in the format they were created for, and they still are but have just been kind of tossed into the Turn-Based Mode without much consideration.

Either way, Deadfire is really well-balanced in RTWP. There's an incredible amount of build diversity, attributes scale reliably in a way that makes sure every point is always useful and dumping any one will always be felt, there's a compelling reason to choose between different armor weights and weapon speeds because Action Speed/Recovery Time fundamentally effects your damage output and number of hits as compared to the other side, running around recklessly is quickly punished and you're consistently rewarded for having your units in position before battle conditions change, and so on. I don't know where you got this impression that Deadfire is somehow not a balanced game, there was certainly a problem with difficulty for a while, but on a mechanical level Deadfire has always been exceptionally well polished and thoughtfully designed, with a perfect balance between clarity and depth. And in terms of buildcraft, you could pick basically anything and make it viable as long as you had a basic understanding of the mechanics.

I'm not saying you're wrong that TBM can be fun, because as I said earlier it benefits from many of Deadfire's strengths. It still has the really awesome Afflictions/Inspiration system, and I like how TBM plays up elements of combat like the Interruption/Concentration system (and other such nuanced factors) because you really have the time to buckle down and consider your moves. I also don't mind if you prefer it due to just generally enjoying the format a little better. But it's a tad (and that's an understatement) ridiculous to suggest that it hasn't broken the vanilla game's mechanics on a fundamental level. And no it's not simply a "new meta", Turn-Based is provably a shallower, less balanced, more unpolished, and significantly worse version of the game. I honestly believe it's absolutely crazy to suggest that it's somehow an "improvement" to Deadfire's combat, you'd have to be looking at this situation through an insanely tinted pair of glasses to see it that way, especially if you've ever even touched other far more polished and well-considered Turn-Based systems like Divinity or XCOM. It's an alternative, one that may be more fun for a certain type of audience, but it is in no way an improvement (especially when core mechanics often don't function properly or are ignored by the AI, Engagement is so ridiculously finicky there and the AI often seems to just intentionally provoke Disengagement Attacks even when it's a hilariously bad idea, which is something that never happens in real-time and thus greatly mystifies me... and have you tried Galawain's Challenge? Man those enemies do not seem to be aware of their bonuses).

PS: Couldn't find somewhere to fit this, but this claim that individual actions are more significant in TBM just doesn't sit right with me. Like, sure, they get spotlighted more thanks to the way the mode works. But the way the mode works also makes those individual actions less significant. It's much easier to miss AOEs without the ability to retarget them, attacks are less effective and deal less damage over time because you output so much fewer of them with the dexterity changes, and because there's less punishment for moving and attacking simultaneously (since enemies can't react right away) you're under quite a bit less pressure while trying to set up any particular strategy.

PSS: I think you're underselling just how tedious TBM is. As I said, damage values are still tuned for real-time, but the pacing of the game is much slower. Even on fast mode, battles take an absolute eternity. The beach cavern on POTD in Real-Time takes 10 maybe 15 minutes at most to clear, the same cavern takes more than an hour on TBM (I believe I even have video evidence of this). TBM makes combat encounters more than five times longer on average from what I can tell, and even worse it reduces the importance of resource management. Whereas in RT when your abilities were all gone, the fight would be almost over, in TBM the fight's still in full swing. There's a construct encounter in that cave which took me more than 30 minutes, and 80% of the fight was spent flank killing the one dude (with only basic attacks) because he has so much health and you do so little damage. That fight takes maybe 5 minutes at most in RTWP, and he's much easier to cleave through because he's so slow that you can get out nearly five attacks by the time he outputs one, but TBM puts enemies designed like that onto an even playing field they weren't designed for and it creates extreme tedium. I literally cannot imagine trying to beat the whole game on TBM, I imagine it's already 60-100 hours long with the DLCs, and I'm sure just by the virtue of playing TBM you'd more than double that playtime due to just how long combat takes (and that's probably underselling it as far as I'm concerned).

Quote

But, hopefully, it feels a lot more like it's part of the core experience, rather than something tacked on, despite the aforementioned balance issues. 

TLDR: No, it still feels very, very tacked on. Which is not to suggest the devs didn't put a lot of work onto it, but that it was stapled onto the existing game in an inefficient way despite not being a good fit.

PSSS: btw I just want to make clear that I'm also glad the mode exists, but you are greatly understating the depth of its incredible number of very problematic issues, and greatly overstating the original games flaws in comparison.

[Yosharian]

10 hours ago, Novem said:

I don't know what game you're playing, but Deadfire is an extremely balanced game in RTWP, and your examples do not in any way prove otherwise. Resolve may be a dump stat, but it's nowhere near as severe a dump stat as Dexterity (which you can dump completely with no consequence) or even itself (both attributes which are reliant on duration are worse, not to mention that low defenses don't mean as much because you aren't being attacked nearly as much) in Turn-Based Mode. And well... that's the only substantive point you made to that effect so there's not much else to argue against.

Regardless, the suggestion that there's "very little to ruin" is absurd. Each attribute in real-time has value (yes, even Resolve). In Turn-Based, half of the attributes either suck or are worse in almost every situation unless you're gaming the system towards specific break points. This irrevocably makes combat worse, because the problem isn't just that you "can't follow build guides" anymore, it's that there are much fewer good and viable builds to begin with. Equipment choice has been similarly damaged, since Initiative is only situationally useful, unlike the original Action Speed which was always useful (meaning balance-wise there's almost no reason not to dump your Dex and then throw Heavy Armor onto most of your characters). Turn-Based also rewards extremely cheesy strategies like kiting with ranged characters and just generally running around like an idiot because there's nothing that really punishes you from moving around all the time when attacking and even if you dump your Dexterity you generally still have more than enough Stride to outrun monsters for a little bit (except for the faster ones, I'm sure). It has a LOT of issues that the original version of the game (even beyond this, and this is just the stuff I had marked down after the first HOUR of playing TBM, I'm sure there are many more nuanced flaws) didn't have because the original mechanics were actually designed to operate in the format they were created for, and they still are but have just been kind of tossed into the Turn-Based Mode without much consideration.

Either way, Deadfire is really well-balanced in RTWP. There's an incredible amount of build diversity, attributes scale reliably in a way that makes sure every point is always useful and dumping any one will always be felt, there's a compelling reason to choose between different armor weights and weapon speeds because Action Speed/Recovery Time fundamentally effects your damage output and number of hits as compared to the other side, running around recklessly is quickly punished and you're consistently rewarded for having your units in position before battle conditions change, and so on. I don't know where you got this impression that Deadfire is somehow not a balanced game, there was certainly a problem with difficulty for a while, but on a mechanical level Deadfire has always been exceptionally well polished and thoughtfully designed, with a perfect balance between clarity and depth. And in terms of buildcraft, you could pick basically anything and make it viable as long as you had a basic understanding of the mechanics.

I'm not saying you're wrong that TBM can be fun, because as I said earlier it benefits from many of Deadfire's strengths. It still has the really awesome Afflictions/Inspiration system, and I like how TBM plays up elements of combat like the Interruption/Concentration system (and other such nuanced factors) because you really have the time to buckle down and consider your moves. I also don't mind if you prefer it due to just generally enjoying the format a little better. But it's a tad (and that's an understatement) ridiculous to suggest that it hasn't broken the vanilla game's mechanics on a fundamental level. And no it's not simply a "new meta", Turn-Based is provably a shallower, less balanced, more unpolished, and significantly worse version of the game. I honestly believe it's absolutely crazy to suggest that it's somehow an "improvement" to Deadfire's combat, you'd have to be looking at this situation through an insanely tinted pair of glasses to see it that way, especially if you've ever even touched other far more polished and well-considered Turn-Based systems like Divinity or XCOM. It's an alternative, one that may be more fun for a certain type of audience, but it is in no way an improvement (especially when core mechanics often don't function properly or are ignored by the AI, Engagement is so ridiculously finicky there and the AI often seems to just intentionally provoke Disengagement Attacks even when it's a hilariously bad idea, which is something that never happens in real-time and thus greatly mystifies me... and have you tried Galawain's Challenge? Man those enemies do not seem to be aware of their bonuses).

PS: Couldn't find somewhere to fit this, but this claim that individual actions are more significant in TBM just doesn't sit right with me. Like, sure, they get spotlighted more thanks to the way the mode works. But the way the mode works also makes those individual actions less significant. It's much easier to miss AOEs without the ability to retarget them, attacks are less effective and deal less damage over time because you output so much fewer of them with the dexterity changes, and because there's less punishment for moving and attacking simultaneously (since enemies can't react right away) you're under quite a bit less pressure while trying to set up any particular strategy.

PSS: I think you're underselling just how tedious TBM is. As I said, damage values are still tuned for real-time, but the pacing of the game is much slower. Even on fast mode, battles take an absolute eternity. The beach cavern on POTD in Real-Time takes 10 maybe 15 minutes at most to clear, the same cavern takes more than an hour on TBM (I believe I even have video evidence of this). TBM makes combat encounters more than five times longer on average from what I can tell, and even worse it reduces the importance of resource management. Whereas in RT when your abilities were all gone, the fight would be almost over, in TBM the fight's still in full swing. There's a construct encounter in that cave which took me more than 30 minutes, and 80% of the fight was spent flank killing the one dude (with only basic attacks) because he has so much health and you do so little damage. That fight takes maybe 5 minutes at most in RTWP, and he's much easier to cleave through because he's so slow that you can get out nearly five attacks by the time he outputs one, but TBM puts enemies designed like that onto an even playing field they weren't designed for and it creates extreme tedium. I literally cannot imagine trying to beat the whole game on TBM, I imagine it's already 60-100 hours long with the DLCs, and I'm sure just by the virtue of playing TBM you'd more than double that playtime due to just how long combat takes (and that's probably underselling it as far as I'm concerned).

TLDR: No, it still feels very, very tacked on. Which is not to suggest the devs didn't put a lot of work onto it, but that it was stapled onto the existing game in an inefficient way despite not being a good fit.

PSSS: btw I just want to make clear that I'm also glad the mode exists, but you are greatly understating the depth of its incredible number of very problematic issues, and greatly overstating the original games flaws in comparison.

> Deadfire is an extremely balanced game in RTWP, and your examples do not in any way prove otherwise.

I gave one example, and it was an off-hand one.  Resolve is a dump stat for the vast majority of builds.  This is because Deflection is a statistic that offers increasing returns as it increases (explained here).  It's also because the amount of Deflection you gain from each point of Resolve doesn't compare to the amount of damage/healing you gain from MIG, or the gains from other attributes (aside from CON, which has its own problems).  For example, the greatest amount of ACC you can obtain from an item is about +3 (equivalent to 3 PER, and PER offers very little aside from Accuracy).  And +Accuracy items are quite rare.  But the greatest amount of Deflection you can gain is +7 (equivalent to +7 Resolve, and again, Resolve offers very little aside from Deflection bonuses).  And +Deflection items aren't that rare.

But don't take my word for it, just look at the endless numbers of builds in the build repository that dump Resolve.  This attribute just isn't valuable enough in the Deadfire meta.

But again, this was one off-hand example.  I could go into further detail, but really it would be pointless.  You think Deadfire is well-balanced, I do not.  There it is.  And that was my ultimate point - that there is not a perfect consensus on these things, despite the echo chamber that you'll find here on the Obsidian forums that Deadfire is the greatest RPG ever made and is absolutely perfect.  (If you visit other forums, you may well find dissent on that point)

Which serves to illustrate that when considering whether Turn-Based mode is worth considering, you should try it out for yourself, rather than taking the word of the RTWP-disciples here on the Obsi forums as gospel.  Which was my original point, as evidenced by this quote:

Quote

 

 Ultimately, I really think you should try out turn-based, and do so with an open mind.  You'll probably go back to RTWP, just like the others in this thread, but there's a chance you might like it, that it might breathe new life in to the game.

Personally I feel that Deadfire's combat is dramatically improved by turn-based, and I'm glad that they implemented it, warts-and-all.  And again, I say that as someone who was very sceptical about it, initially.

 

 

[Yosharian]

To address your points in greater detail:

> Resolve may be a dump stat, but it's nowhere near as severe a dump stat as Dexterity (which you can dump completely with no consequence)

That's not the case, there are consequences.  There are effectively few consequences because Initiative is not that important, but it's incorrect to say that there are no consequences.  It would still be much better to act earlier in the turn if it were possible, just the same as it would be better to have that +Deflection if it were possible.  It's just that other attributes are more valuable, in both cases.

> not to mention that low defenses don't mean as much because you aren't being attacked nearly as much) in Turn-Based Mode.

What does that even mean?  Not attacked nearly as much?  That makes no sense.  If it were true that the number of attacks per given amount of time has gone down (which you haven't proven), it still wouldn't lower the importance of defenses, because the actual number of attacks received hasn't gone down, just been stretched over a slightly longer period of time.

> And well... that's the only substantive point you made to that effect so there's not much else to argue against.

Because I wasn't creating an argument, I was offering an alternative viewpoint.  That was the entire point of my post.  Otherwise I would have offered many more examples.

> Each attribute in real-time has value (yes, even Resolve)

Same is true for Turn-Based, strictly speaking.

> half of the attributes either suck or are worse in almost every situation unless you're gaming the system towards specific break points.

Half the attributes?  This is straight up false.

> This irrevocably makes combat worse, because the problem isn't just that you "can't follow build guides" anymore, it's that there are much fewer good and viable builds to begin with.

It's not clear at all that there are fewer good and viable builds, because while Turn-Based weakens attributes such as Dexterity, this creates a space for other attributes to shine, thus creating the possibility of new, different builds.

> Equipment choice has been similarly damaged, since Initiative is only situationally useful, unlike the original Action Speed which was always useful

- "Equipment choice has been similarly damaged, since Resolve is only situationally useful"

- "Equipment choice has been similarly damaged, since Armor is only situationally useful"

^^ things which can be said about RTWP.  You're just spinning the situation to make it appear as if the loss of Action Speed as a 'king' stat is the end of the world for the game.  It isn't.

> meaning balance-wise there's almost no reason not to dump your Dex and then throw Heavy Armor onto most of your characters

As opposed to RTWP, where there's almost no reason not to dump your Resolve and throw the lightest armors onto most of your characters...

> Turn-Based also rewards extremely cheesy strategies like kiting with ranged characters and just generally running around like an idiot

Bahaha are you actually serious right now?  As if you can't use kiting in RTWP?  Kiting is like the number 1 cheese strat in RTWP.

> even beyond this, and this is just the stuff I had marked down after the first HOUR of playing TBM, I'm sure there are many more nuanced flaws

Speculation.

> issues that the original didn't have because the original mechanics were actually designed to operate in the format they were created for

That turn-based wasn't the original design format doesn't necessarily mean that RTWP is better.  Again, you're just speculating.

> Either way, Deadfire is really well-balanced in RTWP. There's an incredible amount of build diversity, attributes scale reliably in a way that makes sure every point is always useful and dumping any one will always be felt, there's a compelling reason to choose between different armor weights and weapon speeds because Action Speed/Recovery Time fundamentally effects your damage output and number of hits as compared to the other side, running around recklessly is quickly punished and you're consistently rewarded for having your units in position before battle conditions change, and so on.

Yeah I disagree with practically everything you just said.  Which was my original point.

> Turn-Based is provably a shallower, less balanced, more unpolished, and significantly worse version of the game.

You haven't proved that.

> I honestly believe it's absolutely crazy to suggest that it's somehow an "improvement" to Deadfire's combat, you'd have to be looking at this situation through an insanely tinted pair of glasses to see it that way

Just because you lack the ability to understand that another person might appreciate turn-based mode differently to yourself, doesn't mean I, or any of the other people who think turn-based is actually better than RTWP, are looking at the situation through an 'insanely tinted pair of glasses'.

> but it is in no way an improvement

Yes it is.  Subjectively.

> especially when core mechanics often don't function properly or are ignored by the AI, Engagement is so ridiculously finicky there and the AI often seems to just intentionally provoke Disengagement Attacks even when it's a hilariously bad idea

I haven't seen that behaviour.  I've seen some mob types ignoring Engagement, but most don't, and the ones that did were 'zombie'-type mobs such as the ones in lower Neketaka.  Of course, we know that AI in RTWP is perfect and never makes such mistakes, yes yes.  It's only turn-based mode that could have such issues.

> this claim that individual actions are more significant in TBM just doesn't sit right with me. Like, sure, they get spotlighted more thanks to the way the mode works.

It's probably because you didn't read what I posted properly.  Here it is again:

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[turn-based] allows individual actions and abilities to shine in a way that they just can't in RTWP.  You experience each action in greater detail than you might if there were umpteen other things happening at the same time.

So what I said was, it allows abilities to shine, to be experienced in greater detail.  I did not say that they were more 'significant'.  That's your incorrect interpretation, not what I said.  When you said 'sure they get spotlighted more', that's actually all I said.  So we actually agree on this point.

> attacks are less effective and deal less damage over time because you output so much fewer of them with the dexterity changes

That's not been my experience.  Attacks still feel very strong to me.  My 2H quarterstaff fighter is one of my strongest damage dealers.  It feels ****ing awesome when he smacks enemies for high damage.

> because there's less punishment for moving and attacking simultaneously (since enemies can't react right away) you're under quite a bit less pressure while trying to set up any particular strategy.

This I actually agree with.  But, I like this.  I prefer the tactical style of turn-based over the pressure of RTWP.

> I think you're underselling just how tedious TBM is. As I said, damage values are still tuned for real-time, but the pacing of the game is much slower. Even on fast mode, battles take an absolute eternity. The beach cavern on POTD in Real-Time takes 10 maybe 15 minutes at most to clear, the same cavern takes more than an hour on TBM (I believe I even have video evidence of this).

And yet, I still prefer it.  How can this be??  It's a conundrum.

Perhaps one possible issue could be that you're judging the entire mode from one hour of play in the tutorial cavern, as opposed to actually experiencing the rest of the game, as I have done.

> I literally cannot imagine trying to beat the whole game on TBM,

And yet, I'm LITERALLY doing it right now!  I can't even!

> you are greatly understating the depth of its incredible number of very problematic issues, and greatly overstating the original games flaws in comparison.

I don't think that's true.

Edited May 15, 2019 by Yosharian

[Novem]

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That's not the case, there are consequences. 

Which is why I said "as". Dumping dexterity has next to no impact on combat at all, arenas and ranges are too small for the pitiful loss in stride (someone with 4 Dex can still move 11m, lol) to make any difference and Initiative is only situationally useful. Resolve is a lot more useful because having longer status effects on you makes a marked difference in combat, and Deflection is the best defense in most situations. I'm not saying it isn't a dump stat, but that's more because increasing the other stats provides more benefits than keeping your Resolve up. Moreover, it's the only real dump stat among all of the stats. Combine both of these things, and it's not really a balance issue as much as a buildcraft issue, and a minor one at that.

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You think Deadfire is well-balanced, I do not.

This is not a serious argument, just a shield against having your opinion criticized for being bad.

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Which serves to illustrate that when considering whether Turn-Based mode is worth considering, you should try it out for yourself, rather than taking the word of the RTWP-disciples here on the Obsi forums as gospel.

I did, that's why I know it sucks.

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What does that even mean?  Not attacked nearly as much?  That makes no sense.

Every person takes 1 action per turn, that means they only get one attack. This means that there are fewer attacks happening overall because in RTWP some characters can attack multiple times by the time another gets off one. This makes perfect sense, when you are getting attacked less, that means you defenses are being checked fewer times and thus they are objectively less useful.

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Same is true for Turn-Based, strictly speaking.

No it isn't. We've already discussed Dex, but there is also Intelligence, which loses half of it's use as a stat in a vast majority of situations unless you happen (or design your build) to hit a breakpoint that ups or decreases an effect by a round. AOEs are not useful on every character, therefore single-target focused abilities are weaker in TBM (especially when they only last one round, and either way it also means individual points in Int aren't very useful on their own). And Resolve is almost completely useless in TBM for the same duration-related issue and because defenses are less valuable than in RT.

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It's not clear at all that there are fewer good and viable builds, because while Turn-Based weakens attributes such as Dexterity, this creates a space for other attributes to shine, thus creating the possibility of new, different builds.

Yes it is clear. When half the stats lose so much value because they are tied to mechanics which have been changed to be less scalable, this reduces the number of viable builds, because there are fewer good options. Especially because TBM has not opened up any space for other attributes to shine, the other attributes that weren't effected by the change are still exactly the same as they were in RTWP, and the reason RTWP is so incredibly well-balanced is because every stat had its usefulness and none of them clearly outclassed the others (Dex was the best stat, but it wasn't so much better than it crowded out the others).

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^^ things which can be said about RTWP.  You're just spinning the situation to make it appear as if the loss of Action Speed as a 'king' stat is the end of the world for the game.  It isn't.

Yes, those are problems. If you're going to pretend that those two things have as fundamental an impact on combat (and equipment choice) as Dexterity though, you're the one spinning things.

(BTW, there's a mod that addresses the second thing, and as I've already said Resolve isn't as useless as you make it out to be, reduced hostile effect duration is useful in the vast majority of situations, it's just not as useful as the benefits you get from increasing other stats)

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As opposed to RTWP, where there's almost no reason not to dump your Resolve and throw the lightest armors onto most of your characters...

You're greatly exaggerating the issue. I mean, yea, let's just throw light armor on your tank and see how well that goes, lol

What I think you're also being completely blind to is that you're viewing this from a really faulty perspective. No casual player (which is what I would consider myself, by the way) is going to attempt doing that kind of thing in RTWP, meanwhile in TBM it's really obvious that the best strat is to give almost everyone Heavy Armor (except your priest and maybe your caster) because Initiative is useless to most characters.

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Bahaha are you actually serious right now?  As if you can't use kiting in RTWP?  Kiting is like the number 1 cheese strat in RTWP. 

Moving incurs recovery time in RTWP. You are punished for attempting to kite (not to mention costs you time you would otherwise spend attacking). There is no significant penalty for attacking after moving in TBM. It doesn't take any specialized knowledge or builds to successfully kite in TBM, the only thing stopping you is the fact that it would make battles take even more of an eternity than they already do. Or well I guess it wouldn't even effect that much because there is no punishment for moving and attacking on the same turn, you don't lose anything and there's no opportunity cost like there is in RTWP. The idea that the situation is in any way equivalent is a fantasy.

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Speculation.

And? The point is that if I can notice this many issues from just an hour of playtime, then there's something seriously wrong with the mode, which there is.

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That turn-based wasn't the original design format doesn't necessarily mean that RTWP is better.  Again, you're just speculating. 

I'm not speculating at all. It's really obvious that when you take mechanics and shove them into a mode they weren't designed for they are going to become flawed. Duration, for example, is a mechanic made for a real-time game that for some reason is sticking around in a rigid turn-based mode. That's why RTWP is better, not just because it wasn't "the original design format" (which is not an argument I ever made, by the way).

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Yeah I disagree with practically everything you just said.

Congratulations.

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You haven't proved that. 

Yes I have, quite thoroughly in fact.

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Just because you lack the ability to understand that another person might appreciate turn-based mode differently to yourself, doesn't mean I, or any of the other people who think turn-based is actually better than RTWP, are looking at the situation through an 'insanely tinted pair of glasses'.

I specifically point out that I don't mind if someone enjoys it more. Enjoyment is not a qualitative measure.

And yes, you are in fact looking at the situation through an insanely tinted pair of glasses. There's a difference between enjoying something more and thinking it's actually better in reality.

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Yes it is.  Subjectively.

Exactly, through your tinted glasses.

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Of course, we know that AI in RTWP is perfect and never makes such mistakes, yes yes.

I never made that argument. Pretending I did is seriously disingenuous.

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I haven't seen that behaviour.

I observed this behavior more than ten times... in the starting cavern alone. That's when I lost count.

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It's only turn-based mode that could have such issues.

TBM is legit the only time in my 150 hours of playing POE2 that I actually noticed an issue in the AI. I'm not very perceptive about these things, because as I said I'm a casual player with just a fairly simple understanding of the mechanics. The fact that any issue was noticeable to me at all, but especially to such an incredible degree, is clearly reflective of a serious problem.

Oh by the way, TBM is also the first time in my entire time playing either game that I actually truly dumped a stat. I've played about 400 hours of both games combined, but the closest I've gotten is putting Constitution on 7 or 8 on my caster characters. I know that's probably not the most efficient, but I don't care because I'm just assessing the stats at face value. Unless I magically became a min-maxer, me setting Dex and Resolve at their minimum values the second I rolled my second TBM character (it took a few tries before I was satisfied, because the class I initially had in mind wasn't satisfying with the way Intellect was changed to function) while knowing next to nothing about the outside conversation about the mode. The fact that I wouldn't say I'm all that good at this game (I can't even progress in POTD without a mod that turns off that stat bonuses), and yet even I knew this was the best way to do things is really reflective of a fundamental lack of depth here.

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It's probably because you didn't read what I posted properly.  Here it is again:

But uh... I did. I knew that's what you meant, which is why I pointed out the "spotlighting" thing to begin with. Seems you didn't read what I said properly, because my argument was that the loss of significance makes that additional spotlight pointless. Impact is just as important to the relative satisfaction of using an ability as your ability to pay attention to it in the heat of battle. Note, I don't think negatively of you because of that, my own fault for not being clear,

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And yet, I still prefer it.  How can this be??  It's a conundrum.

Perhaps one possible issue could be that you're judging the entire mode from one hour of play in the tutorial cavern, as opposed to actually experiencing the rest of the game, as I have done.

You're making an assumption. I said that's what I had "marked down". I was writing down faults I found in the TBM because I was intentionally testing it and pushing it to reveal issues, since I plan on updating my review of the game (not that I expected you to know that, just adding context). I never at any point said that was all that I had played of the TBM, just that the issues I specified were altogether something I'd found in that initial block of time.

But I'm good as far as what I've progressed to on that. I'll probably run through a bit more than I have to capture footage for my review, but after that I'm not touching the mode again until modders tackle it. I generally prefer Turn-Based games, but Deadfire's implementation is a complete mess.

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And yet, I'm LITERALLY doing it right now!  I can't even!

Good for you. (not sarcasm, just pointing out that your personal experience does not in any way undermine the point you are attempting to defeat)

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I don't think that's true.

Well I don't know what to tell you, but it is. If you can take your glasses off for a few minutes, you can scroll up and read why. There's no reason why you can't prefer the mode and yet still realize it's incredibly flawed. I don't know about you, but I generally have high standards for the things I enjoy. I don't just ignore the problems they have because I like them, and I certainly don't pretend other things have problems in order to make the thing I like look better. But that's because I actually want the things I like to be the best version of themselves, and so it doesn't hurt my feelings when people utilize legitimate critique against them, and I'm the first one to deliver it as well (ex, I think the first Pillars of Eternity is one of the best works of fiction in video games, but I also know and often criticize the first act for being a completely impenetrable mess and the ending for robbing you of agency at the last minute, among other things).

All I'm saying is that you should be a bit more self-aware about the things you say. You can express your preference for something without putting something else down or denying the reality of the situation because it's inconvenient. Even if you enjoy TBM as it is, you should want it to be the best it can be, and it very obviously isn't at the moment. Instead you're only concerned about justifying your preference in order to have your opinion validated, and that isn't very productive.

For one, if you believe in your opinion, you shouldn't need it validated by others. And you don't need to justify your preference either, because it's yours and that doesn't and shouldn't matter to anyone else, because no one else is you and thus no one else shares your exact preference. I'm not saying you shouldn't express it so you can relate to other like-minded souls, but that you shouldn't feel any need to defend it because it's not about anyone criticizing it, it's about you.

Anyways, secondly and finally, if your concern is where it should be (for the game), then you should be willing to savagely tear it apart if it's flawed even if you do like it bunches.  Because that means it can be better in the future, and you don't have to offer caveats when you talk about your love for it to other people (like you did at the beginning). I mean, you should see my original Pillars of Eternity II review, I swear I spend more of that video criticizing the game than praising it, and yet I still gave it an 8.5 when it came down to it. Because I can be objective about the things I enjoy, I can put aside my preference for the sake of providing the best and most productive possible analysis, providing an opinion based on the facts rather than what I'd like to believe is the case. And I like to imagine that people doing that is part of the reason why the game is so much better now than it was when I released my review, and certainly much better than when it launched.

That's the best and most effective form of participating in a discussion, in my eyes. And it is not at all what you have been doing, which is why I'm here calling you out for it, because it's always a disappointment to see. I hope you improve, so you can better contribute to the conversation, (<this is not meant to be passive aggressive, this is my legitimate hope, because I don't really get any enjoyment from sardonic quips or mean-spirited comments when they're directed at people who aren't intentionally being intellectually dishonest, I don't think you are so I'd prefer to be as respectful as possible, though I'm sure I slipped somewhere in this diatribe due to frustration, my bad, apologies)

Either way, off to bed! Have a nice night,

Edited May 15, 2019 by Novem

[Yosharian]

1 action per turn, less attacks, possibly, but less attacks means less damage, means more turns, net number of attacks received = same, thus defenses not less valuable, as you claimed

[Yosharian]

Intelligence is great in turn-based.  Maxed on all 6 of my characters

[Yosharian]

Most of your characters != tank

[Yosharian]

The rest isn't worth responding to.

[Novem]

22 hours ago, Yosharian said:

1 action per turn, less attacks, possibly, but less attacks means less damage, means more turns, net number of attacks received = same, thus defenses not less valuable, as you claimed

Uh, no, that's not how that works. Recovery time in real-time means that some units attack more frequently than others. This is not the case in turn-based mode, meaning that any units who would previously have had a high recovery time that would've permitted the other side to attack multiple times before they attacked once is put onto an even playing field with units that previously outspeeded them by a significant margin. This is common sense dude, it's not hard to figure out.

In turn-based, as compared to real-time, slow characters are essentially getting attacks for free because they are always guaranteed an action and an attack. Thus whenever you face enemy groups that are composed of fast enemies, they are essentially attacking fewer times, and thus you are being attacked fewer times than you would have been in real-time before they die (and the same is true the other way around).

This is particularly the case for spells by the way. They are much easier to avoid in TBM, especially because even with min dex you can probably escape the AOE (another problem with how insignificant the difference in stride is from dumping).

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Intelligence is great in turn-based.  Maxed on all 6 of my characters

I never said it wasn't, I said it's worse, because it is. And there's certainly no point in maxing it, you just need to high enough to meet the break point in order to extend your effects another round. The upper points you invest don't actually do anything as far as duration is concerned, and don't do anything at all if you are using a character that does not rely on area of effect attacks.

Dude I barely know what I'm talking about when it comes to this game's mechanics and even I know this. The fact that we're arguing at all over things that are so incredibly basic even when you probably have a better understanding of this game's mechanics than I do is real proof of how dark those glasses you're wearing are.

PS: Because there are so many dump stats (and hell, even on casters, you can go min dex and still go pretty early in most fights using light armor), it makes the act of maxing any given stat much less meaningful as far as communicating the stats value. Of course you're prone to max an even partially useful attribute when you just basically got like 15 free points from dumping Dex, Resolve, and maybe even another 8 or so from dumping Constitution. Where else are you gonna put them? lol

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Most of your characters != tank

Fair point, but you're also ignoring that Medium Armor is also fairly useful on front-line characters that don't take lots of attacks, but still need the protection for when they do. Or at least that's always been my impression as a casual player.

Meanwhile the Heavy Armor issue is so bad that even some rando on reddit that's probably only played the game for a few hours has caught onto the fact that Heavy Armor is the objectively correct choice on literally everyone that isn't casting spells.

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The rest isn't worth responding to.

Then you're really bad at debate, you mostly only responded to points where you could be proven factually incorrect, lol

Of course I think you're just playing at aloof and don't have a real argument with which to respond to most of my points, or are otherwise just too fed up to continue the conversation. I think what I wrote is worth something a lot more substantive than the silly one-liners you've decided to respond with, and I'm the one who isn't going to continue the conversation past this point because you're being incredibly disrespectful and also because you're far too down the rabbit hole to listen to reason.

[Yosharian]

Ultimately, this discussion is not worth continuing because a lot of the elements being discussed are down to personal taste.  What elements can be delved into in a more objective manner are also not getting us anywhere because we both have very different ideas on how they work, and it's not clear at all who is correct on each point, from a neutral perspective.  While I'm willing to say 'well, we disagree on this, so I'm not going to debate further on it because it's a waste of time for both of us', you can't respect that, instead seeing it as a victory that one person in a discussion decides not to debate further.  See it that way if you wish, but I hardly think that means you are good at debating while I am not.  As for the accusation that I'm being disrespectful, that's probably fair, I can be an ***hole sometimes.

Edited May 17, 2019 by Yosharian