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

So you're saying the Fire Emblem series, Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics Ogre, and the entire Disgaea series are against the nature of video games? Or past their time?

I feel RTwP is past it's time, myself. It was a hybrid system to try taking a turn-based ruleset and making it realtime. It did what it set out to do, but only barely. And combat in RTwP is boring for me because I just end up either
1) Pausing every 6 seconds to re-issue orders. Making it turn-based anyways.
2) Swarm the enemy with melee classes in order to avoid pausing too much. Which is then minimal effort/input from me and boring.

I would appreciate it if moving forward you would read what I have written and take it into account first. I outlined my thoughts clearly but I will do so again. Final Fantasy tactics, Tactics ogre and Disgaea did not suffer greatly due to them having a heavy focus on tactical combat(a wargame in pen and paper terms). Fire Emblem was releasing in 1990 while the technical limitations I spoke of where still present and prevalent and thus I would not hold it against them though I would support my previous statement that the turn based combat is counterproductive to the immersion or the efficacy of the simulation.


In reply to your first point I can't help but point out that you are creating the problem yourself. I would use the pause function sparingly and only to circumvent the lack of a quick slot bar or being able to bind spells to keys directly. I would not use it to change targets, retreat, advance or use consumables not on my hotbar. You continue to say that it is turn based anyway and in that regard I can't understand how you would consider it inferior when it is capable of twice the choice of turn based combat. I do not want to make any assumptions so I will rather wait for you to explain this point further at your discretion.
On the second point I can't help but highlight that this, again, is a problem you are creating. I always made my parties as varied as possible with a minimal frontline where my melee fighter where picked for their classes and the benefits that come with them(i.e Paladin and Barbarian) rather than them being melee characters. I also used my spellcasters to nullify or outpace enemy spellcasters or shut them down entirely by removing their initial protections and inflicting them with conditions that where extremely detrimental to casters(poison, insect swarm etc). This is a problem you created by choosing this strategy rather than investigating the game mechanics and learning about the combat. Yet again I cannot understand how you consider a system that requires you to pay attention and learn its intricacies as being inferior to one that does not but I will await further explanation.

First, thank you for setting out cogent reasons for your preferences.

Second, I disagree...sort of.

It seems to me in general that there are two basic approaches (yes, variations exist but I'm going to start by lumping rather than splitting) in video game combat.

Twitch fighting - the "how fast can you hit the buttons and maneuver your character" that is seen in Borderlands or in Elder Scrolls Online. There are no "pauses" and if you "pause to think" in real time, the baddies will overwhelm you and kill you.

Turn based fighting - each time a PC is "up", they get time to think and choose their actions.

I've played both, and I can see good and bad sides to both. One example would be a delightful friend of mine who gets very very stressed during Twitch style combat - and the stress basically makes those sorts of games not fun for her.

The point is that Larian Studios chose Turn-based combat; and then made the further choice to take advantage of it's tactical potential and included surfaces, throwing, free actions and all sorts of refinements. This means that ANY combat can be approached tactically and also that WHEN a combat is approached with thought and planning it goes better.

One downside to this is that it "makes me think" more often than a more simplified game, but I choose to see this a feature, rather than a bug.

Now to go back to Argonaut's point; original D&D is certainly well described as a "Theatre of the Mind". Which makes me think of a type of play/presentation done in my early school years called "Readers Theatre" which was akin to a stage play where the Actors stood in a row and essentially read their scripts. There was no "acting" (physically) and it was sort of like being read aloud to; a definite difference in style from more usual Theatre - but also let itself quite well to the audience being able to "see" the action in their imaginations.

In the same way, fanfiction takes a story from RPGs or games, and then tells it. And in writing, one cannot have simultaneous different things going on. So reading is "one word at a time" and you tell "this thing happened" and then "the next thing happened" which is highly akin to turn based play. That's one of the reason I can enjoy it, because I can "follow the story" more easily.

So for me, it is very effective in that "simulation of a faux reality" is very accessible by these means.

YMMV

I appreciate your courteousness but it is at this point that I must interrupt the train of thought in your writing to point something critical out to you. The examples you listed are not isometric CRPGs.


Again I must point something out to you that is critical here. Your description of turn based combat is lacking and does not reflect the turn based combat in Larian games. You do not "get time" to think about your actions as this implies finality. Time stops and waits for you to think, and there is nothing outside of your direct control that would give you agency in this regard.


This is understandable however that is the very nature of unfamiliarity. We all had to learn to drive at some point and all of us where on edge to one degree or another even after we had passed our driving examination to receive our license. Some of us well after that and this fear was not reflective of our abilities. If we had never confronted this and overcome it, we would not be able to drive cars. I am making this point because you are about to reach a conclusion via what I could charitably call unfounded evidence.


I don't think you have considered this statement fully. Let's assume first that you are 100% correct. Savescumming is already a prevalent solution and problem to combat mechanics in this game as well as other mechanics. This in and of itself already greatly diminishes the tactical potential unless you are playing on honor mode.
Now let us look at your supposition more closely. You propose that turn based combat offers greater tactical potential and that the combat can only be approached tactically in this state. The second part of this is blatantly false so with the greatest respect I am not going to address it. Moving past that surfaces, throwing, free actions and all of that still exist in RTwP. This leaves you with turn based combat having greater tactical depth and I would not content this point so strongly if it where not for the prior definition you gave of turn based combat. You have infinite time and reality pauses and waits for you for every single action your characters take. I've already pointed out how this absolutely shatters immersion but now I'm going to point out how all urgency has disappeared. Why is a good tactician necessary for success in battle? Because we value the ability to remain calm and rational under pressure and making effective choices within a time limit. There is no time limit in Larian-style turn based combat. This immediately dilutes it's tactical difficulty and it's tactical potential as the only difference between the greatest tactician and the poorest is how long it takes them to arrive at an effective choice. Imagine if the enemy army called out their every move to each others tacticians. I am going to use bullet points for this for ease of reading.
Army A: We are going to flank you now. They proceed to move their forces to your left flank and wait for until you take an action.
Army B: We are going to split up into a pincer formation so as to divide your forces. They proceed to move into a pincer formation facing your army invalidating your flank.
Army A: Okay we are attacking now. Your army stands still while they attack and kill a few of you.
Army B: Okay our wizard is going to cast fireball now.
I understand I am being hyperbolic but the reality is far less complementary as it would be individual soldiers calling out their actions. Do you believe this would make the tacticians job easier or harder?


It gives you more time to think yes. RTwP or urgency do not prevent you from thinking or motivate you to not do so. They pressure you to think faster and makes your choices have much bigger impact with much bigger consequences or rewards as the world is not waiting for you to decide what to do. This means that you have to start thinking even when you are not in combat. If you find a flaw in your armor you have to close it up as soon as possible and be ready to respond to it at moments notice. You need to think about your builds and party composition more carefully because a moments hesitation can cost you your life. You need to think about position and how you approach a fight in much greater depth because once the action starts you are on a very tight schedule. So far this seems to be asking for an easy mode but consider that Tactician Mode and Honor Mode already exist and Larian have a very strong basis for creating a turn based combat system and excellent funding. There is no reason not to include a RTwP, at least as an optional mode, especially when we are effectively paying them full price to alpha test the game.


To start off with, you did not understand my point in the slightest. I am going to explain it again as clearly as I am able to but forgive me if I am unable to do so. I am also sorry if I come off as harsh but I am a just a dude and I'm not perfect.

I described DnD as being reliant on theater of the mind as a severe limitation that cannot be overcome. Even with the greatest models, maps and props, even with live actors, you cannot bypass this roadblock in the simulation. Keep in mind that the very purpose of D&D and Videogames is the simulation and this doubles for an RPG videogame. I made this point in order to address the counter argument many people present that D&D pen and paper is turn based. I was trying to draw attention to the fact that these are not the same mediums and video games has the potential to take the simulation to a much, much higher level as well as to point out that it has taken steps backwards in more than one direction but didn't wish to go deeper so as to not dilute this point or distract from it as it is the crux of my argument. I can tell you did not understand this because you immediately compared video games to other mediums. Video games are also not books. Movies are not video games. Movies are not books. Books are not movies. They can be similar but the nature and goal of them is different despite them sharing some common goals such as presenting an aesthetic or trying to draw light to an issue or telling a story. You in fact corroborate this with your ending statements as you compare it to reading when you are not reading. You are playing a turn based videogame. There is no way for me to make it clearer how turn based gameplay is detracting from the simulation than this.

Furthermore I don't think professional voice actors or even actors would appreciate your estimation of the importance of vocal acting. There are debates ongoing in the scientific community about just how powerful sound is in regards to how it affects you mentally going back many years in the form of pavlovian conditioning. There is recognition in film and videogames of just how powerful not just voice acting is, but sound in general. You are taking it for granted and I don't believe that to be fair.

I would like to close this by recognizing that turn based combat may be superior to you or for you but using that as a basis is extremely selfish. Read through this thread and see how many people consider RTwP to be superior. Do you think it is fair for the choice of the system to be based off of subjective anecdote when there is just as much for the other option? Can you not see how they are being robbed of the very thing you are defending? This is why I chose to take such a hands off objective approach to my point. We all want different things, but we need to sit down like adults and consider things objectively as well from time to time and remind ourselves that if we base a choice from a point of personal preference alone we are effectively throwing an equally large demographic under the bus in a self serving manner. I'm sorry if this comes off as Harsh and I do not mean it in a demeaning fashion but as you may have gathered from my posts I am blunt and straight forward.

My two cents on the thread title.

Let me start off by saying: I didn't read every message in this thread. I didn't even read some messages. In fact, I read less than 5% of the messages in this thread. As such, I'll likely end up posting something that someone else already said. So, if my statements seem repetitive, take that into account. I'm giving my opinion based solely on the thread title.

The first "modern" D&D game I played was Neverwinter Nights, back in...well, a while ago. Now that I think about it, long enough ago that it's probably not considered "modern" anymore. That game was real time/"active pause" game play. I enjoyed it. BG3 has a number of elements that remind me of NWN; a LARGE number of things. Prior to NWN (both one and two), I played a game WAAAY back when I was still in high school (late 80s) called "A Bards Tale", which was turn based. As it was late 80s, the Internet, or even networked gaming, wasn't really a thing. I enjoyed that game too. The main difference I see is: can I easily stop the game if I need to take a bathroom break?

NWN server/Internet game play did NOT allow you to pause. If you needed to take a break to answer the door and get your pizza, get a soda from the fridge, or use the facilities rather than soil yourself, you would need to drop out of game and then eventually log back in, meet up with your party, and rejoin it. While I haven't had the chance to play on a game server yet, I can easily get a break and not worry about returning to a pile of dead party. I couldn't do that in NWN game servers, even the one I created for myself (I created a server that had true random encounter, so...yeah...a pile of dead party). It seems to me I can take a break with BG3.

I'd think that, if you want to compare to D&D, being able to take a short break is part of the game. Imagine needing to do a bunch of work to continue your table top game every time someone needed to answer the door, take a phone call, or engage in anti-soiling measures? Granted, you have that when you log off for the evening, but everyone has that when you end a game session anyway. That ordeal is always expected in the table game when the session ends, but having weekend long sessions isn't as easy when you need to break down and set up again (log off and log back in) for every tiny pause.

I think the game should be available to the larger audience, myself included, for a WHILE before deciding on whether to change from turn-based to real time. My preference, as I'm older and slower, is that BG3 stay turn-based. I could play it real time, but I'd rather not.

To be fair, there isn't one more tactical than the other, both TpT and Rtwp have overall the same features. Its a matter of feeling. Some people appreciate the versatility and the flexibility of Rtwp, and its more cinematic approach , while other like the slower, more mathematic system of TpT, that allow you to consider quietly each actions and doesn't burden the player with the decision making of ''when to pause'', nor bother you with the micromanagement than Rtwp often demands.

The attack,spell, feature, zone, bonus actions, and whatever combat thing you can do are possible in both mode. Some people like it one way, some people like it the other way, and some people like both. And that's that.

Like someone else already said, I think RTwP is an outdated system that served it's purpose by trying to do something that Turn Based simply does better.

As someone who plays D&D every week and has played BG 1 and 2 extensively, I don't feel as though RTwP reflects D&D at all. I was excited for BG3 precisely because of Turn Based gameplay, and if it were taken out I probably wouldn't play it. Having said that, I don't think Turn Based would be removed because of a point I've already made - D&D by its very nature is turn based and this game currently does a brilliant job at it.

This isnt true. TB system is a niche and favored by some, but real time gaming is basicly the standard in all games, ecxept those which are pure tactical (civilization etc). Im pretty sure this will reach a broader customer base if it is real time, or we had the option to choose.
The reason D&D is TB is because it is not a video game. There are plenty if things in BG3 that doesnt reflect D&D, so this should not be the reason to exclude real time combat.

If they want the game to reach heights like Dragon age, Witcher and Skyrim they need more immersive combat in real time to appeal to the average rpg-joe.

Fair enough. However, I'd also add that the action economy in D&D 5E lends itself to turn based, and I don't think actions, bonus actions and the core mechanics would translate well to RTwP.

This circular debate is exercise in futility ultimately because it's about preference, feelings and a sense of entitlement for the one side that hates turn-based combat.


Whereas you're not totally wrong, your argument is not particularly well thought-out. Action-combat certainly is more accessible to a broader audience than turn-based combat, pretty much in the same way football is a more popular sports than chess. You seem to not understand why chess exists in the world of football. Niches exists because they cater to a field not overcrowded. Same thing is true for D&D and BG, they are both genre classics.

Your argument is to throw the baby out with the bathwater simply because BG3 diverts from tabletop D&D 5e in some ways. My counter-argument would be that a slavish conversion from the tabletop to computer medium would not be a game as much as a simulator. It would likely be un-fun and appeal only to a tiny niche of hardcore D&D players. Besides, your imagined action-game would not really be D&D 5e, it would be Forgotten Realms at best; a game loosely based around the world setting and broader game system in general.

that might be very true. all i ever want is BG2 in 3D

I think Avowed, from now Microsoft-owned Obsidian, might tick your boxes more than BG ever did

Totally agree. It is RT/wP that is the advanced combat system that truly reflects how combat actually happens in real life. TB combat is completely fake, and not even truly tactical because for something to be truly tactical there has to be the element of dynamic time in the combat where the actions of all sides are happening simultaneously and you are trying to tactically react to your opponents. Reacting dynamically to an opponent is what makes something tactical. Playing a game with TB combat is like lighting your house with oil lamps even though you have electricity (RT/wP) available.

Besides, yeah, TB fans can be as entitled as they want but TB RPGs will never be as popular as RT/wP RPGs, because those RT/wP games provide a much more immersive and engaging RPG experience than any TB game possibly can. TB games are just boring sequential action-reaction combat games and that's it. So what I am hoping for is that WotC will someday give me a Dragon Age/Witcher-like game using the Forgotten Realms setting. I don't at all give a damn about D&D tabletop mechanics because I want a video game and not a stupid tabletop game.

I'll take turn-based every time. The reality of the situation is that when playing single player--which is my only interest in BG3--the *player* controls all the characters in the party and turn based gives him the opportunity to control every combat move of every party member. RTwp doesn't do that--the game engine itself takes charge and determines the moves and the outcome and often at least one player in the group, if not several, wind up doing things that the player doesn't like and would not have have so ordered in turn-based. Sometimes party members die when they don't have to, etc. RTwp takes a lot of the fun out of the game for me. It's like a dice roll determines the outcome instead me--or my strategy invoked for each team member. I think Turn-based in Pillars oE 2 is really nice and well done, and I believe that had it been a part of the game when it was first released the game would have done much better than it did--but that's only part of the PoE 2 story. I don't see save scumming as anything bad at all--it can be a godsend in some games and it is far superior to checkpoint saves and so on because it allows the player (me) much more flexibility in trying different strategies and so on until I'm content with the outcome of a particular situation. So I'm a turn-based fan all the way.

However, if an RTwp with an [i]anytime pause mode[/i] is included, that I would rate second-best behind turn-based, because at least I can determine a few actions the party members will take in combat. But overall, turn-based is my favorite combat mode by far for this kind of party-centered game. I like what I'm seeing so far in EA, even though it is so raw/alpha atm it's hard to judge...;)

I get the debate, but I honestly dont understand the comparisons with Skyrim and Witcher. Skyrim is a real time action game, never had a pause, and scratches a completely different itch. Witcher is the same and its even less an RPG because you have a pre-defined character with a pre-defined set of skills and spells. Neither of them are party-based either. Dragon Age was great when Origins was released, but its tactical element pretty much died after the first game.

If people want popularity like Skyrim then they might as well throw D&D out of the water and leave the party behind. Bethesda did that turning isometric turn-based Fallout into a post-apocalyptic Elder Scrolls, and we know how fans reacted. Not to mention that all the numerous threads and comments complaining about the party size probably mean that no party at all would be a blasphemy.

If we talk comparisons for the audience then lets compare to Pathfinder Kingmaker and Pillars of Eternity, which sort of becomes moot since neither of the games sold as much as Divinity Original Sin 2. Wasteland 2 and now 3 are turn-based games as well.

Just popping in to show my support for turn based RPGs. There are far more RTwp games out there, let us have our turn based games like... D&D.

This game feels awful, I can't stand the turn based fights it feels so draining, shallow and boring. I want RTWP added in, you guys made a shit load of money already I think you can afford to make the game actually playable and do justice to the previous BG games. Make it so you can choose which game mode you want at the beginning TB or RTWP. They managed to make it work great 20 years ago so its for sure possible.

What's the link between being shallow and being turn-based?

Just my opinion of course. I've played both Divinity:Original Sin 1 & 2 and Baldur's Gate 1 & 2. I have not played table-top D&D.

I didn't mind turn-based in DOS unless there were a large number of combatants. Then it becames very annoying to have to wait, while my PC got hammered and I couldn't do anything. I do like the idea of being able to set up the moves for each member of your party, while presumably the enemy does the same, and then play out the turn to see what happens. Initiative still plays into it because that determines the order. And on the other hand, going party member by party member allows the later members to react to the earlier attacks. Probably more realistic but is it D&D?

On the other hand, I found that I was doing a lot of pausing in BG if only to go after a new enemy. I'd also pause after a spell to set up something new as well as when someone died. BG was more frantic, but then I don't play shooters and my reflexes aren't that fast.

Which did I prefer to play? Probably DOS and turn-by-turn. But what is "true" D&D? I don't know.

I know several hundred thousand Starcraft / RTS players that would like to have a very thorough and heated argument with you.
Oh wait, you are endorsing save scumming.

To all the people supporting Turn-Based combat consider the following :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeYBJHNPagk - Soloing last boss of DivOS2 with the cat summon, also known in the MTG community as a 1 turn kill.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYvfjOtNvh0 - Enemies skipping initiative order in turn based

Please watch some of this guys videos about combat mechanics, balance, and turn based combat in DivOS2.