Suggestion: Make a pure turn-based combat RPG

[Spook]

If by real time we are talking about not being bound by periods of enforced activity then ATB/RTWP are the way to go for RPG's especially if you are controlling a party rather than an individual.

It is just in teamplay RT is most limiting, not when you just have one character to take care of. This will remain true as long as no true AI have been made to handle team mates in a perfect way (and no such thing has been done so far).

 

I have to say that the more characters under your control, the less usefull do I find RT. I also hate bad control subrutines for NPC team mates as well.

[Iolo]

If by real time we are talking about not being bound by periods of enforced activity then ATB/RTWP are the way to go for RPG's especially if you are controlling a party rather than an individual.

It is just in teamplay RT is most limiting, not when you just have one character to take care of. This will remain true as long as no true AI have been made to handle team mates in a perfect way (and no such thing has been done so far).

 

I have to say that the more characters under your control, the less usefull do I find RT. I also hate bad control subrutines for NPC team mates as well.

Agreed. I turned on all of the auto pause options in Icewind Dale 2, KOTOR and BG series to simulate turn based combat as best I could. If I ran across too easy fights, I just paused and turned them off (although I don't think I bother doing this too often in KOTOR as the battles usually were pretty quick). The more I think about it the ideal game would have both turn based and real time with pause and you would choose whichever was most appropriate to the situation. If you need more granularity or tactics, turn on the turn based option. If it's an easy fight, turn on real time. Van Buren was going to do this I think which is probably the best way to go. The players that hate turn based combat don't need to use but they may be missing out on some tactical options or won't be able to use them as effectively, which is probably acceptable based on the combat situation.

[Deadeye Dragoon]

Because it did.

Actually I had no trouble controlling 4 squad members and the other two being snipers, well besides finding vantage points to shoot from. They didnt need a lot of control.It's simply a case of thinking ahead and where member A will be (who has the MG) when member B C and D arrive.

 

Do you really need to wait for something to cycle through 10 units just so you can give the same shoot him in the head order to a sniper ? I think not. Thats another failing of STB games. Even if your only engaged with 2 out of 10 units you still have to wait for all 10 to move. In the "mop up" phase its a royal pain in the butt.

Well, I did as you suggested a while back and played through Tactics in RT, with a full squad. It was a far cry from efficiency for me, unless I took the boring decoy+sniper route. With two unarmed, two frontliners, and two supporters, I could only really attack in three phases of 2 as a group (or often just a single 2-man attack), with each 2-man unit performing the same actions, attacking the same enemy, etc. It just seemed quite loose and quite prone to failure by surprises. It was not "Tactics" IMO, beyond the preparation to position and AI settings before the slamdances began. It was certainly not "perfect" considering the available tactics found in TB mode being diluted in RT mode.

 

I managed to employ as much tactics as I could though, but for any interesting tactics it would turn into a clickfest. Can I click that guy to use grenades just before my unarmed characters go in, then click that guy again in time so that he won't keep hurling grenades at my now active unarmed guys? That had become the primary determiner of success in any battles with interesting and elastic tactics. Or, more often, I'd just ignore interesting ideas and go for the easiest win with the same boring methods again and again. In turning into a clickfest, it had lost most of its tactical nuance and challenge for me. Again, hardly perfect.

 

The problem with cycling is quite easy to fix, with a sleep mode one checks during or before the battle, the cycles would skip those on sleep/overwatch mode.

 

BTW, have you ever played JA2? If so, would you think an RT mode would perfectly reflect the tactical possibilities of its TB mode?

[Iolo]

Oh, and when I refer to TB, I'm talking about STB. I want combat like Silent Storm, oh baby...

 

I have yet to see an RPG (that isn't an action RPG) do combat that I actually find interesting.

Locking the camera and that red bar filling up each turn (remind anyone else of a download?) bored me silly. I mean you cant even have a look around the battle field you just have to stare at the screen till the bar has done it's thing.

 

I read somewhere SS only sold around 24,000 units which was a bit of a shock. Anyone have some different numbers or a link ?

24000 was pulled out of nowhere by the lead designer of The Fall to justify his choice of RT verus TB in that game on a thread on Duck And Cover. TOEE was TB though and that sold quite well at first until word of mouth about the number of bugs got out but even then I would imagine it's still doing respectable. Turn Based games can sell.

 

I have no idea of any official sales figures for Silent Storm. I haven't seen any posted yet. Keep in mind though that the game just came out as well.

[Revolver]

If it's an easy fight, turn on real time.

I'm of the opinion that a good RPG shouldn't have any "easy fights" unless they are initiated by the user, or serve some significant purpose. I hate this old RPG mentality that it will be boring unless we throw in some token fights along the way. If the game is boring, having extra combat isn't going to save it. Including real-time for the purpose of bypassing easy fights is extremely pointless- why have the fights in the first place? Why not have the cupcakes run away, and not stick random things like rats in the way to waste the player's time?

[Iolo]

If it's an easy fight, turn on real time.

I'm of the opinion that a good RPG shouldn't have any "easy fights" unless they are initiated by the user, or serve some significant purpose. I hate this old RPG mentality that it will be boring unless we throw in some token fights along the way. If the game is boring, having extra combat isn't going to save it. Including real-time for the purpose of bypassing easy fights is extremely pointless- why have the fights in the first place? Why not have the cupcakes run away, and not stick random things like rats in the way to waste the player's time?

Perhaps but having both options in the game done well (although not necessarily identical in features or options) would serve both sides of the coin, those who hate turn based and those that like it. We will never know what Van Buren would have been like and how it would have implemented this. Sean Reynolds inquired about releasing the tutorial demo but I think he never received a response.

[Deadeye Dragoon]

Regarding easy fights that you know you can't win, why can't a Turn Based game have an auto resolve function that resolves the combat using default behavior based on scripts and at the end of the combat you see the results like what happened to your characters.  You would only use that option when you knew the fight would be easy.  And if the fights are too easy, then that's a factor of poor design for those monsters.

(strictly TB) Jagged Alliance 2 had auto-resolve, though it didn't give results as efficient as if you commanded things, it was useful for cleaning up a stray enemy who you couldn't find. Of course there are very few easy fights in that game IMO, which goes to your second point.

 

And to where RT is viable. IMO (group) RT can be used if a) the discrepancy in power/survivability between PCs and enemies is vast, or b ) the tactics simply aren't very intricate. Modifying this slightly is TBWP, the best example being IWD2 which had some very challenging RTish battles, with challenging opponents (which made the autopause that much more important, as was said). In pure RT/no-pause group games the challenge just can't be very severe, and intricate tactics--or at least tactics based on multiple action selections, must be unnecessary to survive. In such games "tactics" generally just resolve around positioning and targeting. Not variety of actions.

 

ACK, I keep writing b ) without the space and it turns into a smiley face

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

And why in a turn based option SP couldn't you also have characters doing their actions until you say to stop? I think the original Pool of Radiance had that. You had to press space bar or Q maybe once their automatic turn began to break in. Designers could go beyond this and also implement a queue for turn based actions so that in the next few rounds the character does that behavior until you tell them not to. You'd still have the option of interrupting the attack to do what you want to do instead.

 

The difference of course is that each character or NPC acts upon its own initiative so it's still turn based. However, you could also implement what TOEE did where the enemies will move synchronously at the same time to do their attacks if it is feasible. This would reduce the wait time of your example of waiting for all 10 of the enemy characters to complete their turn.

 

Regarding easy fights that you know you can't win, why can't a Turn Based game have an auto resolve function that resolves the combat using default behavior based on scripts and at the end of the combat you see the results like what happened to your characters. You would only use that option when you knew the fight would be easy. And if the fights are too easy, then that's a factor of poor design for those monsters.

 

Regarding D&D being turn based versus real time in a CRPG, each and every D&D developer comes up with their own bastardized rules with an approximation of the correct rules, ignore the rule entirely or create something entirely new. NWN especially suffered from this as did BG series. At least when implemented in a turn based game there is a stronger likelihood for the rules to be implemented properly since the original rule set is turn based. Maybe WotC should come up with a CRPG real time rule set for D&D so that there was one standard that all of those RT D&D CRPGs could use.

 

Behind the scenes in these games like BG and NWN and even KOTOR, there are still rounds. Your character makes a certain number of attacks per round. You can queue up actions in NWN and KOTOR that get done on the following rounds. The difference is you can break in at any time and change what you had queued up but the action that you queued for that round can't be interrupted once it had begun, just like a real turn based game. There is also less granularity of choice in real time versus turn based in choosing your actions. Not to mention the real time aspects makes certain tactical choices not available in a real time game. For choice of tactics, a turn based game is the way to go and you can always improve how it is designed to reduce player wait. There is no reason that turn based combat can't have evolved beyond the original Pool of Radiance. Real time combat will always be faster but it's at the expense of choice and depending on the game the trade off isn't worth it.

Even if you do that you still have to wait for them to complete the action. Where as in RT they are completing those actions at the same time you are doing other things, unless you tell them otherwise. It's sort of the ultimate limiting factor of TB games.

 

If one person takes 10 seconds to move then 10 people will take 100 seconds in a TB game. In an RT game regardless of the number of people the total time is still 10 seconds.

 

To be honest I found TOEE in some situations to be a horrible mess. For example when my party had reach weapons this would happen.. The screen would lock and a couple of seconds later half of the enemy would have keeled over.

 

Having an auto resolution is not an option in an RPG for me. RPG combat has consequences beyond that one fight. Also in games where auto resolution is a factor there is another strong element of gameplay to replace it.

Auto resolution basically admits that TB is flawed fundamentally and the only way around the flaw is to have some form of very unrealistic solution which totally divorces the player from the game.

 

If people think that having AI assist is a bad thing (like BG) then totally placing your fate in the hands of an AI is a 1000 times worse.

 

While you may be correct that you cant get the level of detail in RT (though you can get more in RTWP) that you can in TB. It really dosnt matter. The bottom line is going to be that the sales generated by STB games just isnt worth it.

Hybrids that try to include both are even more suspect. I cant think of a single one where both modes worked well.

They also add to developement time and hence costs.

[Hell Kitty]

Oh, and when I refer to TB, I'm talking about STB. I want combat like Silent Storm, oh baby...

 

I have yet to see an RPG (that isn't an action RPG) do combat that I actually find interesting.

Locking the camera and that red bar filling up each turn (remind anyone else of a download?) bored me silly. I mean you cant even have a look around the battle field you just have to stare at the screen till the bar has done it's thing.

 

I read somewhere SS only sold around 24,000 units which was a bit of a shock. Anyone have some different numbers or a link ?

You can modify one line in the config file to gain control of the camera during the enemy turn.

 

I never expected Silent Storm to sell huge amounts, but Nival aren't interested in making games that are huge commercial successes. What the RPG world needs is devs who are happy (and have the time and money) to make niche titles.

[Spook]

I really can't see what your hurry is. What does it matter if the fight takes 100 s instead of 10s? It is not a race against the clock to finish the game.

 

I prefere full control, which RT don't give, to have fast fights.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

24000 was pulled out of nowhere by the lead designer of The Fall to justify his choice of RT verus TB in that game on a thread on Duck And Cover. TOEE was TB though and that sold quite well at first until word of mouth about the number of bugs got out but even then I would imagine it's still doing respectable. Turn Based games can sell.

 

I have no idea of any official sales figures for Silent Storm. I haven't seen any posted yet. Keep in mind though that the game just came out as well.

I doubt he made them up though. Keep in mind the game has been out in Europe a lot longer and traditionally these sorts of games do better in Europe than in the US. JA2 for example I believe sold better in Europe than in the US at the time of release.

 

TOEE doing well compared to what ? TOEE is being carried by the D&D name I think everyone knows that. Compared to NWN, another D&D game it's not doing so great.D&D games have a pretty good record of sales.

Before I would except that TB games can sell on their own merits in viable nunbers. I doubt for example Feargus would be jumping for joy if their first title sold 24,000 copies. I would have to see one sell that did not have a recognised high sales property (like D&D) attached to it.

[Iolo]

Well maybe those were European numbers and perhaps they weren't up to date. He didn't provide a link or a source of any kind though so the number is doubtful for that reason.

[Atreides]

I think TB has a future but it will need to have aspects of it improved (and I don't mean become a RT clone). Vast numbers of people were willing to play the FF games which had TB, so all is not lost.

 

If TB can be made more interesting for the average person then TB might become more popular. It makes me bang my head against the keyboard when I remember the fight in FO1 where you basically arm the town gangsters and go against the authorities. Not only was the gang and the authorities at it, the whole bloody town was having a go, down to the animals and kids, each taking their animation times (which were already max speed). The damn screen was locked onto my character and basically I'd need to wait 4 minutes to get to my damn turn (which lasted a whole 7 seconds) while the hobos missed 3 times in a row, were shot or were plain running away. At times I wondered if my pc had hanged or something. Not good at all.

 

Personally I think RTWP is the best so far as a compromise between RT and TB, and if not appreciated, at least acceptable to most people.

[Iolo]

By the way, an expansion to Silent Storm has been announced and is in development. They wouldn't have decided to make an expansion if the game hadn't sold well enough against their costs. Expansions can be made more easily and quicker than a new game but only the purchasers of the initial game buy it and not 100% of them either.

[pulp]

Volourn> it all depends on the DM and the people you're playing with, I suppose LOL.

 

With regards single-players vs. Multiple characters, it does figure into the debate in a big way - as you've pointed out, controlling more than one character does make a game more tactical, and I've argued that that's what TB games allow most specifically, and in the best manner possible.

 

I do understand if feel that controlling more than one character lessens the role-playing strength of the game in general, but I'd argue that while this might be in a certain sense true, it depends very much on how developers have crafted the game - depending on the game being "player-centric" vs. "story-centric", the latter case being where the PC is incidental to the evolving drama around him/her/it.

 

Oh, I'll be the first to agree that NWN is a good platform to explore other fan-created games/stories - it's what I loved NWN for. But that's after I got past the disappointing OC, which I completed as a matter of course, rather than with any real pleasure.

 

Wrt MW, sorry, I don't prefer it at all.

 

You'll note that with all the examples you cited, it all involved preparation prior to combat, and not actual in-game tactics *while* combat was going on. I don't see that as being tactical, just prudent .

[Hell Kitty]

By the way, an expansion to Silent Storm has been announced and is in development. They wouldn't have decided to make an expansion if the game hadn't sold well enough against their costs.

I dunno, it was barely out in Europe (apart from Russia), before the announcement was made. I imagine it did well enough to warrant an expansion, but they are making it because they want to, not because it's going to bring in the cash.

[Revolver]

I agree that hybrids are just a disaster. And I'm not convinced that real time squad based combat is controllable to a satisfactory level. And I agree that squad turned based combat with multiple enemies in a RPG can get tedious. I prefer single character control FO style TB myself.

 

But, the point of this thread is not to say which one is better. Each combat system has its benefits. My point is, that it's time for a new RPG with turned based combat, and I think Obsidian can be the one to deliver it. Shadowpaladin has brought up sales figures and the idea that games with well known licenses sell well, something that I brought up in the first post (with the opposing argument).

 

But theres no sales figure comparison we can make to prove that turn-based games will not sell. BG and NWN sold well b/c of the Forgotten Realms license. TOEE didn't sell well b/c it was in the less popular Greyhawk, and was filled with bugs, and barely had a story. Lionheart didn't sell well because its realtime combat wasnt done well and it was an unknown world. FOs were not a bigger success because they were mature rated. Commandos and SS didn't sell well only in America. I can go on and on for both sides and prove absolutely nothing. So to make a game real-time ONLY b/c "TB will not sell" really shows a lack of thinking, and is really just "following the herd."

[pulp]

But, the point of this thread is not to say which one is better. Each combat system has its benefits.

Good point. Playing FO:T real-time as close to real combat as possible (not necessarily sniper decoy + sneaked in characters w/ full burst auto), but with real fire movement and laying down the suppressing fire while troops moved up and all that..

 

well, it's a rush, and a good one. RT *does* have it's moments, but only if you're willing to lose hair, depending on the game.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

By the way, an expansion to Silent Storm has been announced and is in development. They wouldn't have decided to make an expansion if the game hadn't sold well enough against their costs. Expansions can be made more easily and quicker than a new game but only the purchasers of the initial game buy it and not 100% of them either.

Sales covering costs is relative. Maybe 24,000 would cover costs in Europe but highly unlikely they would in California. Salaries (and hence overheads) are higher, rents are higher, cost of living is higher and so on.

 

Artreides is correct in that TB games will need to find a much more mainstream acceptence level and the only way to do that is to make them more user friendly and not revel in their geekiness.

[Judge Hades]

If I want to play real time combat I'll play an arcade game.

[Iolo]

By the way, an expansion to Silent Storm has been announced and is in development.

[Spook]

Artreides is correct in that TB games will need to find a much more mainstream acceptence level and the only way to do that is to make them more user friendly and not revel in their geekiness.

Care to comment why TB is more "Geekieness" then RT?

 

Personaly I always got the feeling the the gaming to begin with was the "Geekieness" Factor, not the type of battle system the game had.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

QUOTE ( @ --)

But theres no sales figure comparison we can make to prove that turn-based games will not sell. BG and NWN sold well b/c of the Forgotten Realms license. TOEE didn't sell well b/c it was in the less popular Greyhawk, and was filled with bugs, and barely had a story. Lionheart didn't sell well because its realtime combat wasnt done well and it was an unknown world. FOs were not a bigger success because they were m You might have a point but the difference in sales are too large to dismiss just like that. Your talking the difference between 100,000's for top selling TB titles (at time of release not 5 years on) to million plus over the course of a few months. It's only when you go to JRPGs like Pokemon , which is TB and dwarfs most games sales and has been in the charts in GAME since the day it was released. Or Final Fantasy (ATB/TB) to see anything like comparable numbers.   Did KOTOR sell because it was SW ? It probably helped. However there have been SW games that sank without trace too.   Well you could go on , but I doubt you could find comparable sales figures even if you look on consoles where STB games are far more common.

[Revolver]

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[Lord Tingeling]

If I want to play real time combat I'll play an arcade game.

Too bad the world's not made of identical viscerises with identical tastes, then.