Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Mega-threads and Guides The Turn-Based/Real Time with Pause topic

In my case both are a bit of a compromise! I'd prefer 3rd person but will tolerate isometric (or overhead: whether or not anybody else is pedantic, I did to engineering drawing back in the mists of time when I was at school, so...) and so on. I was going to say "a bit like later Bioware" but they were a bit action-y for my liking. I guess there's no pleasing some people.

Anyway, the point being that I'll play it pretty much whichever approach is on offer. And if there're several, I'll probably chop and change as the fancy takes me.

My problem with RtwP is that it's basically turn-based with extra steps.
Instead of the game handling it, I have to pause, make sure everyone is doing what I said, unpause for 4-6 seconds, pause again to make sure the AI did not derp, or change someones target, or start casting a spell, then unpause, then pause again a few seconds later to do it again.

If you're going to do that, just make it turn-based so the combat can be smoother & people aren't punished if they can't hit pause fast enough.

So, honestly, I like TB more, and I'm glad it's going to be turn-based. Since RTwP just feels like 'more complicated & aggravating turn-based combat' to me.

It really isn't turn based though, that's just how you're approaching it.

What you have described is a bad RTwP implementation. A good one would have an AI that does not derp or change targets, and enough auto-pause and AI options to allow you to choose how much or little involvement you want in the combat part of an RPG. If you like a TB feel, you would turn on a lot of the auto-pause options, and turn off a lot of AI behaviour.

Obviously, RTwP and RT games can be more difficult to play if a player's preferences and abilities do not match what the game designers think is a good idea. Unfortunately, many RT-variant games seem to be designed without enough attention to player preferences and configurability.

TB games are generally easy to play because they require no particular dexterity or coordination, but they are not immune from problems. It is as frustrating for some players to be obliged to micro-manage every single action of every member of your party under TB, just as it is under any variant of RT. And TB games designers often seem to be even less aware of the need to consider player preferences and configurability. It doesn't seem likely at this point, for example, that BG3 will allow you to put party characters under any form of AI at all.

I find even the best AI is still too stupid to rely on. Better to have complete control then to give the AI any chance to mess it up. I don't find it frustrating to micro manage all actions; I find it frustrating when stupid AI messes up my plans. As for dexterity and coordination, I don't think RTwP games are where this is really required, such as it is with sport games and something like GoW; but to that point, I don't want to spend my time developing physical skills for something ephemeral like a game. If you're going to put the time in practicing and learning such skills, better to learn how to strum some chords. It will be with you your whole life.

Food for thought. Dexterity, coordination, reaction time might not be a massive requirement in RTwP games as such, but these things are as you say a substantial part of all shooters, sports games, action RPGs, really of majority of games in general. Now the millions and millions of people playing these type of games, I'd like to think it'd be easier for them to pick up a RTwP game than a TB game, TB just feeling too slow for a decent shot in Battlefield/Apex Legends.

On the other hand.. maybe after a few hectic matches in CoD or an adrenaline fueled session of the latest DOOM, kicking back with a TB crpg is just what you need. Chill and afford yourself to take your time, for once.

What direction "mainstream gamers" lean, if picking up crpg's? I like to speculate.

the idea that RTWP soemhow requries twitch skill is nonssense.
Qutie frankly, RTWP requires you to be able to deal with tedium and annoying party AI, tahts about it.

that's like, your opinion, man.

Did I imply that? Requiring twitch skill? Like a CS:GO pro? As if RTwP is somehow the next level of e-sport. Way to be dismissive.

No, the point I was trying to make was that todays mainstream games (be it Rocket League, R6 Siege, FIFA20) all has gameplay that requires some measure of decent reaction time. There's a flow to the gameplay that does not stop or wait for anyone. I was just making a case that if you play a lot of games like this, TB might very well feel too slow, were as the step to RTwP might be a little less jarring. That was all I was saying.

And of course I'm not suggesting I expect a sudden influx of 14 year old fragger-happy fortnite players to have pre-ordered BG3 en masse if it had been RTwP instead of TB.

I was just speculating.

> RtWP means consta micromanaging party members

Bi**** please. Just solo the game.

That really illustrates my point - that not enough attention is paid by developers to how players interact with their games. I completely agree that most AI sucks. The best I can remember is DA:O, which allowed you to define detailed rules for each companion's behaviour, and had a very good UI for defining rules, as well as trivially prioritising rules and turning them on/off. But that was very much an exception, and probably represents the apogee of Bioware's design in this regard.

And no, I also agree RPGs are not twitch gaming, but the apparent difficulty detractors of RTwP have with the act of pausing led me to conclude that it must be some player control problem.

Perhaps a better way to consider things is what players WANT out of a control mechanism.

Players who express a strong preference for TB seem ( on the whole ) to stress a desire to direct all activities in detail. While such micro-management is possible in a typical RTwP game, in most it is undoubtedly clunky to do so, and therefore frustrating.

Conversely, those that express a strong preference for RTwP seem ( on the whole ) to stress a desire for fluidity without detailed management. While it is possible for a typical TB game to automate control, most do not do so, also leading to frustration.

It is entirely possible, under both control schemes, to consider and try to acommodate ( as much as possible ) a variety of player preferences. Larian;s games do try to generate the illusion of urgency/action during TB combat through active/exciting music and animations, but there is a limit to what you can achieve with that when very little is actually happening. Similarly, you could consider the choice to use party initiative and allow simultaneous turns for co-op to be an attempt to inject more fluidity in MP. For SP, improved fluidity would need AI to automate party companions. This is not evident in BG3 at the moment, but may be there at release if the issue is considered important enough.

You're probably right in that, but I'm pretty sure none of the developers doing modern cRPGs seriously expect to break out into the wider gaming world.

BG1/2 sold a couple of million copies over 2 decades and were considered successful. The best-selling subsequent Bioware RPGs managed 4-6 million in a market that had grown by an order of magnitude. And now modern cRPGs are considered wildly successful with a couple of million sales in a market that has grown another order of magnitude.

I think it's fair to say that this sort of cRPG has always had no more than niche appeal.

For me and I played both Divinity1 and DS2 and BG 1 ,Bg2 , and POE and POE2 and PF and honestly i prefer RtWP , for me TB if not balanced properly it makes the game easier and longer battles ( at least to me) .


Heck I still remember fights i had in BG or POE2 that were epic because you had to be on your toes , the enemies react differently, the games plays differently and the systems in place in the game make the game harder not to mention Path of the damned run or solo run .

All in all i wish the best to BG3 and to Larian i just hope they give modders the tools to change the game to at least give me the RtWP option or else i wont buy the game .

This is what I was getting at as well, except that I do believe Larian wants to try and break out into a wider market (because they did so with D:OS2). A true cRPG has a pretty hard ceiling of no more than about 2 million in sales over the long term, with around 1 million being the more realistic audience for most games. But with the kind of financial investment Larian has made into BG3, neither Larian nor WotC for that matter will settle for 2 million in sales, which would about match D:OS2 sales. They're going to want more. And IMO the only way that is possible is to hugely simplify the game.

And if Larian is successful in breaking out into a wider audience, other studios like Obsidian and inXile are surely going to be interested in doing the same, to include the attendant changes in the type of game they make.

So you consider DOS2 a "true" cRPG? Interesting. I wouldn't have expected that.

But anyway, what makes a cRPG a "true" cRPG? And why can't a "true" cRPG break through a ceiling of 2 million sales?

I know, I know! Something to do with "casuals". I think.

cRPG is a genre/format designation.

Is it an RPG made for the computer? Then it is a cRPG. Also, cRPG became synonymous with RPGs that did not follow the JRPG formula. Combat mechanics literally have nothing to do with what makes a game a cRPG.

Disco Elysium is a cRPG. it is a computer Role Playing Game.

You are clearly lacking in the ability to be logical. How do you get one from the other? 'True RPGs don't sell over 2 million.' 'D:OS2 sales were about that.' Two completely separate things. How does the first mean I'm saying D:OS2 is a true RPG? No logic there at all.

Saying something is a true RPG is a way of differentiating it from a new sub-genre of RPG that emerged in more recent years, namely action RPGs.

c = computer RPG
a = action RPG
j = Japanese RPG

none of these are genres. they are formats. the genre is RPG.

DOS2 is a cRPG. According to you, "true" cRPGs do not sell more than 2 million copies (roughly). Since DOS2 did not sell more than 2 million copies (roughly), and since it is a cRPG, the implication is that DOS2 is a "true" cRPG. Is it a necessarily conclusion? No, but given the absence of any other criteria to know what constitutes a "true" cRPG, it's a reasonable conclusion (not that I really thought that is what you meant, though). Consider it facetious.

By your definition of "true" cRPG, would you consider a cRPG not a true RPG?

And why can't a "true" cRPG break more than 2 million sales?