So, realtime with pause...

[Baudolino05]

Starting from the ground up Obs should be able to design a combat system that would be more interesting overall (melee , ranged, magic) Will Eternity play like turn based? No, but it can still be very fun, and the best RTwP tactical RPG game we've seen yet.

 

Surely good real time tactical games (with or without pause) exist: Myth, Dawn of War 2, Total War (during battles) et similia, and hopefully Project Eternity will be one of them, but the point nailed down by Catmorbid remains true: if you have a party of 4/6 characters with a large number of abilities, spells and active skills, you need a lot of pauses to handle with them; so what's the point of having a real time with pause system? You don't gain the fluidity of a full real time system anyway, and a turn based system (with an high killing ratio for both party members and mobs) can assure you a faster pace and an unmatchable control over the action.

 

To be honest, I can't find a single reason to prefer RTwP in RPGs (but still, I never unistalled Darllands from my HDD in the last 10 years ). Is it just a matter of presentation? Does TBC "feel" too slow? The new X-com doesn't...

Edited September 17, 2012 by Baudolino05

[Baudolino05]

Thank god. Turn based combat would have turned me off the game immediately. RTwP is much more engaging and exciting.

same here. turned based makes sense for handhelds because of reduced cpu power, but since this will be a pc exclusive there is no reason to not go real time

 

I give you one reason: having a deep tactical combat like in X-Com, Jugged Alliance and Tactics Ogre (sacrilege, a console game !!!!)

[vattghern]

Thank god. Turn based combat would have turned me off the game immediately. RTwP is much more engaging and exciting.

same here. turned based makes sense for handhelds because of reduced cpu power, but since this will be a pc exclusive there is no reason to not go real time

 

I give you one reason: having a deep tactical combat like in X-Com, Jugged Alliance and Tactics Ogre (sacrilege, a console game !!!!)

baldurs gate and icewind dale also had good tactical combat while being real time with the added benefit of being more immersive. it depends more on the encounter design than what system you use

[Bos_hybrid]

Thank god. Turn based combat would have turned me off the game immediately. RTwP is much more engaging and exciting.

same here. turned based makes sense for handhelds because of reduced cpu power, but since this will be a pc exclusive there is no reason to not go real time

 

I give you one reason: having a deep tactical combat like in X-Com, Jugged Alliance and Tactics Ogre (sacrilege, a console game !!!!)

 

So is X-com....(Console game)

 

You also forgot Front Mission.

[Falchor55]

I can appreciate the merits of both systems. However, my personal favorite option is RTwP with highly customizable party AI scripts (ala BG2 and, to a lesser degree, Final Fantasy 12). And I've played all of the D&D-based cRPGs going back to Pools of Radiance. It provides maximum flexibility by allowing some micro-management (scripts and pausing), while also allowing for more fast-paced mopping up of lesser foes. And, in answer to those who say there's no strategy in IE combat, I found many of the encounters in Icewind Dale 2 to be highly strategic, as I did some of the lich battles in BG2.

[Baudolino05]

 

Thank god. Turn based combat would have turned me off the game immediately. RTwP is much more engaging and exciting.

same here. turned based makes sense for handhelds because of reduced cpu power, but since this will be a pc exclusive there is no reason to not go real time

 

I give you one reason: having a deep tactical combat like in X-Com, Jugged Alliance and Tactics Ogre (sacrilege, a console game !!!!)

baldurs gate and icewind dale also had good tactical combat while being real time with the added benefit of being more immersive. it depends more on the encounter design than what system you use

 

Not as deep as the games I mentioned (tactically speaking) . And, belive me, if you know all the balancing issues of AD&D (as I knew when I bought Baldur's Gate, having played AD&D for years), you can win 9 out 10 encountes using the same tactic. Slightly different story for IWD...

Edited September 17, 2012 by Baudolino05

[Baudolino05]

Thank god. Turn based combat would have turned me off the game immediately. RTwP is much more engaging and exciting.

same here. turned based makes sense for handhelds because of reduced cpu power, but since this will be a pc exclusive there is no reason to not go real time

 

I give you one reason: having a deep tactical combat like in X-Com, Jugged Alliance and Tactics Ogre (sacrilege, a console game !!!!)

 

So is X-com....(Console game)

 

Only the last episode, that - according to what I saw - is great...

You also forgot Front Mission.

 

And Disgaea, and Fire Emblem, etc...

Edited September 17, 2012 by Baudolino05

[vattghern]

 

Thank god. Turn based combat would have turned me off the game immediately. RTwP is much more engaging and exciting.

same here. turned based makes sense for handhelds because of reduced cpu power, but since this will be a pc exclusive there is no reason to not go real time

 

I give you one reason: having a deep tactical combat like in X-Com, Jugged Alliance and Tactics Ogre (sacrilege, a console game !!!!)

baldurs gate and icewind dale also had good tactical combat while being real time with the added benefit of being more immersive. it depends more on the encounter design than what system you use

 

Not as deep as the games I mentioned (tactically speaking) . And, belive me, if you know all the balancing issues of AD&D (as I knew when I bought Baldur's Gate, having played AD&D for years), you can win 9 out 10 encountes using the same tactic. Slightly different story for IWD...

however this game will not be AD&D so that point is moot

 

obsidian have all the freedom to create their own system that is tailor made for RTWP and that offers the same or more depth than a turned based one

[codexer]

Not to be buzzkiller but until this game has an option for turn based combat I will refrain from pledging. That said, I'm not total douche bag; I would be happy if the turn based mode was parallel with the RTwP-mode~

[Baudolino05]

 

Thank god. Turn based combat would have turned me off the game immediately. RTwP is much more engaging and exciting.

same here. turned based makes sense for handhelds because of reduced cpu power, but since this will be a pc exclusive there is no reason to not go real time

 

I give you one reason: having a deep tactical combat like in X-Com, Jugged Alliance and Tactics Ogre (sacrilege, a console game !!!!)

baldurs gate and icewind dale also had good tactical combat while being real time with the added benefit of being more immersive. it depends more on the encounter design than what system you use

 

Not as deep as the games I mentioned (tactically speaking) . And, belive me, if you know all the balancing issues of AD&D (as I knew when I bought Baldur's Gate, having played AD&D for years), you can win 9 out 10 encountes using the same tactic. Slightly different story for IWD...

however this game will not be AD&D so that point is moot

 

obsidian have all the freedom to create their own system that is tailor made for RTWP and that offers the same or more depth than a turned based one

 

I hope so, but still I can't find a good reason for preferring RTwP to TB in RPGs.. I would appreciate if one of the developers came here to explain his reasons...

Edited September 17, 2012 by Baudolino05

[the proctophantasmist]

Starting from the ground up Obs should be able to design a combat system that would be more interesting overall (melee , ranged, magic) Will Eternity play like turn based? No, but it can still be very fun, and the best RTwP tactical RPG game we've seen yet.

 

Surely good real time tactical games (with or without pause) exist: Myth, Dawn of War 2, Total War (during battles) et similia, and hopefully Project Eternity will be one of them, but the point nailed down by Catmorbid remains true: if you have a party of 4/6 characters with a large number of abilities, spells and active skills, you need a lot of pauses to handle with them; so what's the point of having a real time system? You don't gain the fluidity of a real time system anyway, and a turn based system (with an high killing ratio for both party members and mobs) can assure you a faster pace and an unmatchable control over the action.

 

To be honest, I can't find a single reason to prefer RTwP in RPGs (but still, I never unistalled Darllands from my HDD in the last 10 years . Is it just a matter of presentation? Does TBC "feel" too slow? The new X-com doesn't...

 

 

I probably overemphasized my defense of RTwP, it wasn't very clear but I tend to prefer turn based too. At this point though, I think it would be more constructive to think about what can make a good tactical RTwP system, since there is no chance they reverse their decision (as it is set in stone in the Kickstarter description).

 

What you gain with RTwP is synchronism of actions of all the participants, fluidity might be a consequence of it, but it is not the core question. To many players turn based feels disjointed, one acting after the other. I know there are ways to introduce a measure of synchronism in turn-based system, separating movements from other actions, etc, and that it results in more fluid games, but in the end they are just variants.

This is, I think what people means when they say it feels like a "chess game", or it is less immersive.

 

How can one introduce finer controls in a RTwP system? This is I think the more interesting question for this game: what tricks or variants could be introduced to allow for richer tactical elements and finer control. In many way the questions are the exact mirrors of those you would ask for a turn based system.

 

Queued and conditional actions on one hand, and contextual auto-pause trigger on the other (think an enemy as entered my threat zone, giving me an attack of opportunity) might be avenues to explore (not saying that what you will discover will necessarily be interesting to everyone).

[Baudolino05]

How can one introduce finer controls in a RTwP system? This is I think the more interesting question for this game: what tricks or variants could be introduced to allow for richer tactical elements and finer control. In many way the questions are the exact mirrors of those you would ask for a turn based system.

 

Queued and conditional actions on one hand, and contextual auto-pause trigger on the other (think an enemy as entered my threat zone, giving me an attack of opportunity) might be avenues to explore (not saying that what you will discover will necessarily be interesting to everyone).

 

Ok, good question and good answers.

Another usefull feature could be an option for synchronizing actions.

I.E: do I want to move my melee fighter in a safe spot before my mage casts an AoE spell? Well, I keep pushed - let's say - shift, then I select the target for my warrior, the spell and target for the mage and finally I release shift. When I unpause the game both my characters will act with perfect coordination. How does it sound?

 

Anyway, controls and U.I. improvements apart, I think the most important feature for a RTwP game is a well tuned ruleset. I mean, if you have tons of active skills with ridiculous cooldown periods, combat will be always a mess. No doubt about that. I.E games and Darklands work fine because their warriors almost don't need management; DA:O combat, instead, is a bedlam of active skills without hope for redemption....

Edited September 18, 2012 by Baudolino05

[the proctophantasmist]

Another usefull feature could be an option for synchronizing actions.

I.E: do I want to move my melee fighter in a safe spot before my mage casts an AoE spell? Well, I keep pushed - let's say - shift, then I select the target for my warrior, the spell and target for the mage and finally I release shift. When I unpause the game both my characters will act with perfect coordination. How does it sound?

 

Interesting, king of like action queues ranging over the multiple characters of your party. Or triggers, from the completion of one character's action to an other starting something. I don't know how practical this would be but it is interesting. It is also pretty close to having some kind of system to describe and trigger combinations, like you have in team sports, but more of an on the fly thing (which might actually work better). Reminds me of some discussions we had at the start of DA:O development. Let's be nuts: an approach that would combine the two might be the most efficient: ie build a tactic before hand: « Warrior will retreat, and when she is clear, Sorceror will cast fireball on pursuers ». Then during combat, select the combination then the exact places where the warrior will retreat, and where the Sorceror will cast the fireball. Again maybe not to everyone's taste, but I would enjoy some kind of option like that I think.

 

 

To me the biggest advantage the IE games had over say DA:O, or even more so NWN2, was the ease with which you could switch from one character to an other when giving orders. This is a point where isometric games shine, no change of perspective, everything can be fluid. And it is related to the previous point: look for anything that can make the player more efficient and precise when controlling her/his group.

 

Agreed about the ruleset, though, if I understand you correctly, I feel that the problem with active skills and cooldowns are attenuated if it is easier to switch from one character to the other, and as a consequence have less meddlesome AI. After all, one off abilities with a set duration usually work quite well, because in this case the AI never interrupts the ability. It's a fine line between less meddlesome AI, and having your warrior getting massacred because he didn't switch from range to melee though.

 

 

About AoE spells maybe, the player should be able to decide weather the effect will be instantaneous (i.e fireball, casting time and target selection is an other problem), triggered (trap like), and/or lasting. Considering the challenges of realtime tactics the flexibility might add to the game.

[descalabro]

You can also make the IE games turn based, in the pause options there's an option to pause at the start of each round.

 

I agree: for a game like this real-time is the way to go. But I don't find that automatic pause option to be that close to a turn based system for people who prefer turn based.

[Pidesco]

You can also make the IE games turn based, in the pause options there's an option to pause at the start of each round.

 

IE games are not turn based, as individual actions are taken concurrently. Pausing an IE game every 6 seconds doesn't make it turn based.

[Baudolino05]

Interesting, king of like action queues ranging over the multiple characters of your party. Or triggers, from the completion of one character's action to an other starting something. I don't know how practical this would be but it is interesting. It is also pretty close to having some kind of system to describe and trigger combinations, like you have in team sports, but more of an on the fly thing (which might actually work better). Reminds me of some discussions we had at the start of DA:O development. Let's be nuts: an approach that would combine the two might be the most efficient: ie build a tactic before hand: « Warrior will retreat, and when she is clear, Sorceror will cast fireball on pursuers ». Then during combat, select the combination then the exact places where the warrior will retreat, and where the Sorceror will cast the fireball. Again maybe not to everyone's taste, but I would enjoy some kind of option like that I think.

 

Interesting, but don't forget the time factor: if arranging a good strategy takes too much time, RTwP loses its only advantage over turns. Jagged Alliance: Back in Action, for instance, has a movie-maker-like timeline that allows you to set actions. It's a very accurate system, but also slow, VERY slow...

 

To me the biggest advantage the IE games had over say DA:O, or even more so NWN2, was the ease with which you could switch from one character to an other when giving orders. This is a point where isometric games shine, no change of perspective, everything can be fluid. And it is related to the previous point: look for anything that can make the player more efficient and precise when controlling her/his group.

 

I totally agree. The moving camera is the most useless feature ever added to the RPG genre .

Edited September 19, 2012 by Baudolino05

[Piccolo]

The IE games had terrible combat for CRPGs. RTwP is just awful. People who say it's fine probably grew up on those games and don't know any better.

 

I know Project Eternity is supposed to be a sort of tribute to the IE games, but Obsidian should also be aiming to go one step better and actually surpass those games. To accomplish that, they need to not only take the best aspects of the IE games, but also remove the worst aspects (like RTwP).

[el pinko grande]

I'm surprised nobody has brought up Fallout:Tactics. For all that was wrong with that game, I thought they did a great job at the RTwP thing, so much so that I was never able to go back to Fallout 1 & 2 afterwards, since the combat seemed so primitive in comparison. And I'd love it if we could set ranged character to overwatch mode in Project Eternity. My go-to tactic in both Baldur's Gate games was to have my ranger sneak off, attack a group of mobs, and pull them back to the rest of the party, who would then wipe the mobs out with spells and missile weapons. Sadly, that type of gameplay has been tricky in more recent RTwP games, since companion controls have been so wonky and the AI so bad.

 

Also, since this subject has come up several times in this thread, I find turn-based combat to be far, far more immersion-breaking than RTwP.

[Pidesco]

Also, since this subject has come up several times in this thread, I find turn-based combat to be far, far more immersion-breaking than RTwP.

 

What does that mean?

[Orchomene]

I'm surprised nobody has brought up Fallout:Tactics.

 

Exactly my thought. With a Fallout:Tactics system, you may have toggles to go from TB/TB with concurrent actions (like RTwP each round)/RTwP.

This way, everyone is happy.

[Baudolino05]

I'm surprised nobody has brought up Fallout:Tactics

 

Try Jagged Alliace 2 (or X-Com) and then try to return to Fallout: Tactics if you can ...

Edited September 19, 2012 by Baudolino05

[el pinko grande]

Also, since this subject has come up several times in this thread, I find turn-based combat to be far, far more immersion-breaking than RTwP.

 

What does that mean?

 

Essentially, that turn-based combat makes me conscious of the game's systems and their inadequacies in a way that RTwP does not. In a RTwP game, for instance, I can see the enemy mage preparing to cast fireball, and move my party accordingly. In a turn-based game, he casts the spell, damages everyone in my party, and I don't have an opportunity to react. The former strikes me as sensible and realistic, the latter as an unwelcome artifact of tabletop game design. Similarly, the way movement works in turn-based gameplay seems incredibly silly to me. Characters move wherever they please during their turn, even in circumstances where, realistically, someone would intercept them.

[Crosmando]

I have no problem with RTwP, as long as it doesn't feel like an MMO with pause, ie the combat should be swift and lethal, when you could spend a few minutes when you pause, intricately giving commands to your party, so when you unpause you manage to win the fight in a few quick blows, or if you made ONE mistake your entire party gets butchered in a few seconds.

 

No boring auto-attack MMO crap.

 

Also, just a suggestion, what about an auto-pause system so when you get into a combat it automatically pauses.

[Jaesun]

As long as the game has the same tactical depth (or better) of the IE games, I am fine with RTwP. I'd prefer turn-based. However if this project become successful, perhaps they might do a tactical type title similar to the IWD series and perhaps implement Turn-based with that.

[Pidesco]

Also, since this subject has come up several times in this thread, I find turn-based combat to be far, far more immersion-breaking than RTwP.

 

What does that mean?

 

Essentially, that turn-based combat makes me conscious of the game's systems and their inadequacies in a way that RTwP does not. In a RTwP game, for instance, I can see the enemy mage preparing to cast fireball, and move my party accordingly. In a turn-based game, he casts the spell, damages everyone in my party, and I don't have an opportunity to react. The former strikes me as sensible and realistic, the latter as an unwelcome artifact of tabletop game design. Similarly, the way movement works in turn-based gameplay seems incredibly silly to me. Characters move wherever they please during their turn, even in circumstances where, realistically, someone would intercept them.

 

You should try Jagged Alliance 2, methinks.