So, realtime with pause...

[Shaewaros]

Real time with pause of the best option since this game wants to resemble games like Baldur's Gate and PS:T.

[Jozape]

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.

 

A turn-based game can take multiple turns for a spell to cast, giving the target just as much of a chance to react as in RTwP. I agree about the movement although the problem can be minimized. Limit the player to one or maybe two spaces for really fast characters per turn(if using a grid anyways) and it works quite well imo. Ultima 4 and 5 had you moving less than one space at a time in certain terrains, even.

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I find that RTwP lets me play at my own pace whereas turn based can be excruciatingly slow.

[molarBear]

i think it's pretty much set in stone that the game will be realtime. although i would rather prefer turn-based.

[licketysplit]

Turn based seems somewhat contrived to me ( let's take turns killing each other...), and too slow.

[Yst]

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...

 

Real combat does not have turns. It has durations associated with actions, and these actions do not possess a discernible granularity. In a pen and paper system, turns are greatly preferable for practical reasons, as there is no "world engine" to record and monitor the time which every action requires. We need a very high level of granularity, for better or worse.

 

I love both the Fallouts and the Infinity Engine games. And heck, I'm more a pen and paper RPGer than a CRPGer. That being the case, I am just as comfortable with the turn based approach as the real-time/pause approach. But the prior conceit (that virtually everything a human being does in life can be done exactly once or twice per Standard Time Unit) is in fundamental discord with how we know the universe works. And it is not necessary to a CRPG in the way or for the reasons it is necessary to a tabletop RPG. That being the case, there are reasons one might consider the enhanced realism of seemingly unlimited time granularity (such as our world has) desirable.

[khango]

I love the pause based systems. Just please don't make me have to constantly shuffle inventory. Like yeah, I should be able to switch from sword and shield to bow without having to manually de-equip from inventory management, even if you penalize me a moment or two.

[KenThomas]

I actually really enjoy the turn based with pause combat system seen in games such as dragon age origins, although perhaps a queueing system such as the one seen in KOTOR would have made things a little easier.

 

Albeit I feel the real time w.pause system in DAO allowed for great pacing as you could simply waste smaller weaker enemies without the burden of purely turn base combat and its time consuming nature, AND you could, if you so choose, utili

ise the pause system when fighting bosses and powerful enemies (giving you a real sense of control and the ability to delve into very tactical combat strategies).

 

DA:O's RTwP system is in my opinion one of , if not the worst ever iteration of that system. It absolutely forced the player to pause the combat constantly, thereby also stopping all sound and killling immersion in the fight. You weren't allowed to queue ANY actions, and their "tactics" system had very few slots. In order to get a decent gameplay experience, you either had to put all of your characters relatively rare skill points into tactics, or what most people chose to do is mod the game so that way all characters had 20 tactics slots. I do not approve of any system that handcuffs the player into needing to use a third party mod to even get decent functionality out of it.

 

Once you had the slots the tactics system itself was totally decent, allowing you to specify a set of circumstances for the NPC to preform certain functions. My problem was that if you didn't specifically tell them to do something either through a script or directly in the game, they absolutely would never ever do it. Mages with full arsenals of spells would stand there auto attacking. AI written to be about the level of Forrest Gump would've done significantly better. It didn't make for interesting gameplay, it made for a pointless chore. Sure, once you got to a high level and could script in several "if-than" scenarios everything was peachy. Until then you had to deal with your special ed characters while seething about their stupidity on the inside.

 

Enchantment?

 

ENCHANTMENT!

[KenThomas]

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...

 

Betrayal at Krondor is an example of an RPG where turn based combat worked fantastically. That said I don't want them to change their vision. I just want them to get RTwP right.

[Umberlin]

Turn based seems somewhat contrived to me ( let's take turns killing each other...), and too slow.

 

Not a fan of Chess I take it?

[ohmygodsquad]

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).

 

Honestly, I've played both the original Fallouts, along with the BG series, Planescape, Arcanum, NWN 2, and DA:O. I'd have to say my favorite combat comes from BG. Not to say I disliked Fallout's combat but it did get grating at times. Sitting there as each character slowly walked along, got to their spot, took a shot or two, then started the whole process again.

 

With BG I get to watch the action and the spectacle while stepping in the give orders on my own time. DA:O could've had good combat but the party was too small and the camera jumped around.

 

Arcanum tried to do both and suffered from two totally separate combat styles that were both broken in their own ways. Games built for turn-based are balanced for turn-based so making the best of both worlds involves more than just flipping a switch.

 

If Obsidian went with a turn based battle system I'd probably consider pulling out of the kickstarter, honestly. I play games to see what I have to imagine in table top combat and when I imagine I tend to think of Baldur's Gate instead of Fallout.