Well, that's all well and good, and I'd be thrilled if this game changed my mind about turn-based combat.
What I don't like is people suggesting that if it's not turn-based, then it's a mindless, shallow clickfest where you mash a single button with your eyes closed to win every battle.
There are tactics with real-time w/ active pause. Baldur's Gate, Dragon Age, Drakensang anyone? Tactics, strategy, deliberation and party management can still be a part of a game's combat without the game ripping the control out of your hands at every turn and making all the pauses for you. It wastes time, and even at best makes combat more like a separate mini-game.
Totally with Flix on this one.
A good tactical sense will carry you far with real time combat. Seeking positional advantage, proper blocking of enemy access routes to prevent your mages/distance fighters being overrun, etc. Plus you better sort out the strategic side of things if you don't want to die in a hurry, whether through setting up any automatic tactics system (As with Dragon Age or Final Fantasy 12) or just through making sure your characters are properly equipped.
Turn based combat - with or without action points (And I've got games with both systems) is just nowhere near as good.
Put it this way: there's an old game called Chaos Gate that is an action point based turn based combat game set in the Warhammer 40K universe and featuring the usual Space Marines vrs Chaos Marines that you'd expect. It was a great little game for its time, and did what it did well. But is it remotely in the same league as Dawn Of War? No. Of course it isn't.
There is simply no urgency in turn based combat. No sense that you are IN combat and must make decisions fast to save the lives of your people. You could wander off down the pub without even pausing the game and nothing would have changed when you get back.
That total lack of urgency and ability to think out every move for as long as you wish obviously appeals to a number of people on here. It does not appeal to me, and especially not when attached to an RPG.
Does anyone really want to see those little one-hit encounters with an action point system in combat? Four turns and one hit to kill a Bite Bug or whatever? Can anyone truly and honestly say they would love that?
