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

The Solasta demo pops up a yes/no dialog asking if you want to use your reaction, which might seem quite intrusive to some, as it stops the game. An alternative would be a transient dialog up for a few seconds "press to activate shield" or "press to acivate attack of opportunity", or something similar.

I think their design is because they didn't want to stop MP every time a reaction was possible, but I think a transient system could work well.

I can't remember which game it is, but they use pop ups for reactions and it gets annoying pretty fast. Reaction-wise, I think both RTwP and TB will waste resources and neither will have much of a difference. However, one does not have to worry about accidentally shooting a fireball, or using a rage, and that's what I mean by RTwP having a disadvantage here. But yeah, reactions will be a pain. But sometimes I save a reaction for a specific enemy, so I let one thing slide but then the enemy I'm looking out for doesn't do what I expected so I let that thing slide for no reason. I doubt it will make much of a difference, but at least I won't have to deal with those cases anymore lol

I'm fine with reaction popups.

Yes that's really what I imagine... A small window pop up for a few second with the different reactions player's can enable.
We can also imagine time slowing down (for... let's say 5 sec) during the ennemie's animations if the player have something to do.
That way you don't have the feeling of another cut in the action, which is important in TB.

It's interesting how far some of you will go to spin the the issue of TB being too slow. If reactions are done correctly, it is indisputable that the combat will be slower and the flow of combat will be broken. The only way to get around it is by changing reactions from how they are in 5e rules. And all of this just goes to show that you can't have it all. Whatever gains TB combat has over RTwP combat, those gains are offset by losses in other areas such as combat being super-slow and tedious, and the flow of combat being broken. You cannot get around any of that and somehow magically have it all.

Yeah reactions are and always will be a pain to make a video game around. If somehow actually worked how it's supposed to into a game, they would probably win the Nobel prize in video game design.

I hate to keep bringing it up, but I'm still stuck on the fact that RTwP seems to limit builds a lot more than TB.

i dont want a popup, that slows down the game.
However, having a timed prompt would be cool.

but i think turn based games are afraid to includ real time descision making

kanisatha meanwhile reactions would be downright impossible in RTWP, you realize how many times the game would autopause simply from AoOs? and then youd have to go look for em, it would be just as slow.

Not afraid, but it kinda goes against the idea - the very beauty of turn-based is that there is no time pressure or physical demand that might limit your ability to plan, analyze and execute.

Ideally Larian would offer a choice between automatic activation, time-limited activation and time-unlimited activation.

I can see that automatic activation causes no interference in animating enemies, but I suspect it will prove unpopular if it regularly results in the wrong reaction being taken. I think my order of preference would be time-limited > automatic > time-unimited.

They might need to experiment with different visuals for offering time-limited activation; not sure what would work best.

Yes I agree. All I'm saying is one cannot on the one hand say reactions are possible/can work in TB games, and then on the other hand also say combat flow is smooth and doesn't have breaks in TB. Those are contradictory. Allowing for reactions automatically breaks the flow of combat, and there's no way around that.

The benefit of TB combat is that you can take all the time you want to decide what you want to do and how to do it, and the game can include such mechanics as reactions and attacks of opportunity, among other benefits. But these benefits do come at the cost of combat slowing down tremendously, and the flow of combat being lost to the inherent start-stop-start-stop nature of taking turns.

Just as having to pause every couple seconds "real time combat" analyze results of dice rolls, click on enemy character sheet, see their stats and defences, compare them to your characters attack bonuses, scroll through convoluted combat log, which becomes a clusterfuck when 10+ characters perform attacks and rolls at the same time. Thanks to someone encouragement I am playing Kingmaker again, using both real time and turn based combat. There is nothing smooth and flowy about either of those. By having those perform one by one the game at least have a chance to have an even pace. even if a slow one. cRPG will never be Diablo.

I play Kingmaker often. I exclusively play it in RTwP. You couldn't pay me to play it in TB. Combat in my games are always smooth and flow naturally even with the occasional pausing.

>on prompts
how id work em out.

you have to press the button in real time then time stops and the game asks you wether ornot you want to use your reaction.

That way it doesnt slow the game down but still gives you time to think, in multiplayer there could be a time limit on it of course.

>TB and flow
well, i dont think anyone said TB is fast, just that it isnt neccesarily slow. Hard fights are certainly not much of a difference.
Reactions dont work well in either system

Online TCGs have the same problem with stuff like MTGs instant spells.
Or the stack in general.

One cool thing of tabletop stuff is the "retroactive" element to it

Yes, that sounds like a good way to ensure you take exactly the reaction you want.

Yes this would be a great way to do it. And it is something that you can do even in a RTwP game with some extra creativity.

Slowing down the game to have good D&D mechanics & make the combat more meaningful is fine by me, there is nothing wrong with a slower paced game & they are trying to speed things up by the looks of it so a decent balance hopefully.
Better mechanics, great graphics all be more enjoyable in turn based than RTWP - thats my take anyway.

I would imagine RTwP would lead to a few fallback strategies. For example, you could have a party of 4 warlocks and you start every fight off with 4 crowns of madness. Chances are, before the fight really begins, the enemies are all fighting each other. You wouldn't even have to worry about spell slots cause warlocks get them back after a short rest, which is quite a bit easier. I imagine this is also possible in TB, but I think the ease of it in RTwP could make these cheese tactics common and possibly dull the combat.

IMHO, if pause is ever needed (other than for doing something real life), then turn based is a better way; because gives a pause automatically after each step.

Both kind of games can be awesome though, this detail alone won't make a game succeed or fail.

As a fan of the original BG games, I fully support the new system. I actually picked up BG I and II BECAUSE of 5e, and having a (near) exact translation of that to a game (from devs I trust no less) is a dream.

Except for all those many, many people who are perfectly capable of handling a game without needing to stop the action after every step, and for whom constant automatic pauses therefore ruin the game. But the hell with those people, right?