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

The game having TB combat is not at all a "death sentence." I don't think anyone has said that. The game has already sold pretty well and will no doubt be financially successful, simply because it is a D&D game and it is called 'Baldur's Gate.'

I am someone who does not want a game that is as close to a true D&D experience as possible, because I want a video game and do not want a tabletop experience. So I want things to be changed from standard D&D mechanics wherever that would improve the game relative to providing a good VIDEO game experience.

Again, a lot of people like turn based. XCOM, for instance, is one of the greatest games ever made and a cornerstone of the strategy game genre and is turn based. Your argument would suggest we can't have any turn-based games and still have a good video game.

To put it another way; the video game genre is a big place. We have games that are literally visual novels, we have games that are real time strategy, we have turn based strategy, shooters, platformers, rhythm games...To say that turn based games cannot be good games is absurdly subjective. I respect your opinion, but if you believe that generically we can't have a discussion because it's not a debate, it's an assertion.

If you want to talk about got BG3 fails fundamentally as a turned based strategy game, fine. If you want to say how those problems could be fixed by it being RTWP, fine. But maybe step back from saying it's bad because of what it is fundamentally, versus how it implements itself and what it is trying to do.

What are you talking about? I explicitly said a game being good is a subjective thing. That means there is no objective rule that says this is what makes a game good. For me, personally and subjectively, a game being TB automatically puts a big negative hit on that game. If the non-combat parts of that game are excellent, I will both say so and very likely even end up playing the game, suffering through the crappy combat just to enjoy those excellent other parts of the game. But if the non-combat parts of that are nothing to write home about, then I wouldn't care to suffer through a combat system I hate to play that game. Seems pretty reasonable to me.

Why are you TB guys advocating so doggedly against a RTwP mode? Nobody is arguing that TB needs to cancelled. We just want to have an option where we can choose.

Honestly because I don't think they can pull it off and to be realistic if they did manage to they wouldn't be able to without butchering the current system they are building based on 5e.

They couldn't pull it off with their own Home Brew cRPG they built and abandoned the Idea. So honestly do you think they could do it with a system that was tailored more than any other DnD version towards turn based play? Without sacrificing the quality of the game they are building. It would just take additional resources and time from it to try and implement something they already failed at in their own IP. I could be wrong but.... I'm not saying they are incapable of it if they really put in the effort, but that would def take away from the current game. 5e is not as easy to make work in a RTwP environment as AD&D was, and the difficulty to pull it off gets even worse the higher the levels get... If your fine with your characters turning into AI killing machines and you simply controlling 1 character, I however know I wouldn't and a bunch of other people wouldn't and if you did you would still be pausing at least every second most times. If not more.

Just want to second this. If they built a RTWP system in addition to the current turn-based system it would require basically all the time until they decide to release, most likely.

So many turns the AI spend idling before they ever do anything. It's weird...

@ Fistandilus and SilverSaint
So on a basis of speculations about Larians resources while none of you are involved in their processes you try to deny us a query for RTwP?!
Sounds strange and egocentric to me.

realistically, going real time with pause is likely to cause fairly fundamental code changes and as a result there would be significant development overheards, that's just my opinion as a software developer myself.

I think you'd be looking at either:
1) adding a much longer period to early access
2) needing to cut other planned features to fit it in

Those are decisions any business has to make on a regular basis, and it'll become a cost vs reward thing.

issue with making early access window too long, is the hype of the game will absolutely die, which may not be an issue if enough people already bought into early access to justify the production of the game, in fairness. However, if the buy in hasn't hit whatever targets Larian and Wizards have, there will be a stronger need to not have the EA last too long. A year seems to be the length most people anticipate right now, for all we know, Wizards might want a shorter window than that, it'll depend as much on what contracts are in place between Larian and Wizards as much as anything else.

Cutting content to add RTwP? That is risky because the result could be a game with far less actual content, which could result in negativity toward the game as well. Chances are, regardless of if you prefer turn based or RTwP, if you're hyped for a new baldur's gate that is "based on" 5e rules, you're going to get the game and probably play it (at least partially, most people dont finish games these days apparently) and they'll get your money either way. I'd have bought it whether it was turn based on RTwP. I am happy its turn based personally, although i think enemy turns could be sped up. I'd have preferred a more faithful representation of 5e rules (Solasta absolutely destroyes BG3 right now in this regard tbh), but I'll still play it either way. I just am unlikely to bother with it outside of the main game in the way i might have if it was more faithful to D&D 5e.

It’s not a baseless speculation im a developer myself and work on huge enterprise level software. I understand what’s involved and I mention as much in my post into the reasons it’s a bad idea. @blindhamster expanded on exactly those issues in his post as well. It’s just the cold hard facts and it’s not as simple as some think to implement a complex system like that this far in without effecting the current development drastically.

And Larians own home brew system they created is far less complicated then the one they are using as a basis for BG3 and historically they abandoned the idea for implementing it in that as well. How is any of that baseless conjecture.

edit:
I just wanted to add maybe the problem is with the engine itself which is why Larian abandoned the idea of implementing it into whichever D:OS they tried to. Taking the DnD edition differences out of it, I'm pretty sure that BG1 and BG2 where built in a engine specifically meant for RTS games. Making a huge change to the an engine that was probably not meant to do anything like that is a huge undertaking itself. Sure they developed the engine themselves so even just the fact that they gave up trying to do it with the Divinity IP tells me a lot. Now I am making some assumptions here as I'm not very familiar with the engine itself. So this is 100% conjecture. If this was indeed the case how would something like this not be a massive undertaking, just doing it alone would probably eat up the year until they want to release with their bigger team they have since D:OS2 let alone finishing the game itself. Food for thought.

I personally disliked realtime with pause.

Set auto pause after each round and you get basically the same thing we have. /shrugs

I wouldn't be against the option, but as a replacement? Nope.

It's nothing like if it even if they added a pause.

Is anybody in this thread aware that no matter what the arguments against turn based are, Larian will not change that? first, the engine is probabaly not even cut out for it; you want combat that is even more buggy than it is now? Second, probably EVERY fight would have to be competely rebalanced. Hell, entire classes might have to be completely rebalanced. They WILL NOT change the combat system. They have repeatedely stated that in interviews, and it would be absolute madness to change such a significant aspect of the game at this stage of development.
On another note, this is first and foremost THEIR game, not ours. They decided to make it turn based, so get over it.

The battles in the game are taking too long today, but it's hard for me to imagine BG3 battle with real time. Larian will have to redo a lot

I purchased the game in part BECAUSE of the fact that it promised turn-based game-play. I like being able to choose my party's actions rather than trust them to an AI which either overuse or underuse resources. The real-time-with-pause on prior games is one reason I've enjoyed them less.

1) Help action is a revive, really, why, whose idea was this!?
2) I think the party is just too kill-able for a TB game, why not use Dragon Age Origin system?
That is a perfect example of an innovative combat system, revive after battle perfectly fine, with some penalty.
Also with real time with pause you never get, so annoyed, when party dies, with TB you have to redo a boring battle.
3) Party control very bad, very inconvenient, very slow. The game is without any dynamics, they should hide all the inconvenience of pen and paper not show it off.
4) Combat is just slow and boring, miss, miss, hit, miss-miss, kill, revive, kill revive, kill, revive.
5) Luck has just too much role, both in conversations and fights, I would rather go to a casino.
6) Rest system just does not make sense with the combat they have. No perception of time, why not just go to camp after every battle, and the camp is just a "pocket plain". Anyway no-one is becoming Mind Flayer why hurry...
7) Turned based while not in battle, come on that is just the most ridiculous thing I ever seen. I think fallout had it , but it was okay, that was in 1997/1998.

The game has a lot of missed potential and being a Divinity clone with dnd5 system is not the biggest problem.

Yeah what he said

Games like Pathfinder Kingmaker and Pillars of Eternity 2 have options to play either RTwP or TB. Why choose when you can have both?🙂

I'm an engineer and I could probably do it by myself in 2 weeks tops if I didn't have to focus on anything else. The rest of what you said is a bit of a non argument as the game is being bankrolled by two massive publishers plus early access at full retail price which is, currently, 60m income.

How Larian balances mages
TB combat is so good guys
Soloing the last boss of DivOS2 with the cat in one turn

Please see the rest of his channel and videos where he effortlessly obliterates the combat while discussing why not only is Larians sense of balance completely nonexistent but turn based combat being completely broken in the way it is implemented. I've brought this up before and no one has ever been able to counter the evidence or provide an example of RTwP being this broken or this difficult to balance.

Also people saying turn based is more representative of D&D are ousting themselves as uninformed. The duration of turns and rounds are outlined in the 5e PHB and it is explained, I believe, that it is all just an illusion as in reality multiple things are occurring at the same time despite you experiencing them separately due to the inherent limitations of tabletop and pen and paper. Unlike in video games we don't have a processor that thinks in nanoseconds and can bypass all this clutter, clunk and artificiality instantaneously to give a much more accurate simulation but this was the implementation in older games with the ONLY difference to turn based being that the world does not sit around and wait for you.


RTwP is objectively more accurate.

I think BG deserve RTwP, first because it's his essence, secondly because it is well-suited for it.

So I just quote some people I agree with

I'm a Divinity gamer and strongly believe that Baldur's Gate should stay RTwP-based. I'd actually be disconcerted if Larian attempted to fix the Baldur's Gate series by making the sequel turn-based.

slapping the space bar to manage the combat in the original BG games while keeping an eye on the status box still seems exhilarating to me.

For me combat being chaotic is precisely what makes it interesting and entertaining and realistic and yes, exhilarating. A good combat system should be sub-optimal, messy, chaotic, and imperfect in terms of battle results.

Baldur's Gate had both RTwP and Turn based. While RTwP was the default setting, it was possible to change it to pause after each turn. They should implement both ways of playing like the Baldur's Gates games offered.

Why are you TB guys advocating so doggedly against a RTwP mode? Nobody is arguing that TB needs to cancelled. We just want to have an option where we can choose.

Games like Pathfinder Kingmaker and Pillars of Eternity 2 have options to play either RTwP or TB.

Also people saying turn based is more representative of D&D are ousting themselves as uninformed. The duration of turns and rounds are outlined in the 5e PHB and it is explained, I believe, that it is all just an illusion as in reality multiple things are occurring at the same time despite you experiencing them separately due to the inherent limitations of tabletop and pen and paper. Unlike in video games we don't have a processor that thinks in nanoseconds and can bypass all this clutter, clunk and artificiality instantaneously to give a much more accurate simulation but this was the implementation in older games with the ONLY difference to turn based being that the world does not sit around and wait for you.


And one from me, at least !

One of the massive problem with Larian is their will to transpose the DOS2 gameplay in BG3. The barrelmancy is a typical example of why it can't work.

DOS 2 was a little "absurd" universe, one where moving barrels everywhere and becoming the king of barrels explosions could be acceptable but BG3 is more of a "serious" universe. So what worked (and I appreciated) in DOS, doesn't work for BG.

Just imagine reading a forgotten realms novel by Larian, it would be like "And then Drizzt Do Urden send away 6 barrels of oil from he carry in his pocket before sending a stupid candle on it, burning all his ennemies to death and all of it in six seconds"
So is the reason TB is not suited for BG, let's read the new forgotten realms Larian just published :
"After the ennemies saw him, Drizzt decided to let them move first. The first ennemy climb a a cliff and send a fire arrow on him, the second ennemy jump on him and shove him to the ground, the third ennemy rush on him and hit him twice and then the last ennemy jump on him and shove him again. Finally, Drizzt decided to fight back. He jumped to leave the pit where he was and attacks one of his ennemy once, then, hurt and burning, Drizzt decided to stay still and wait again because it was only fair to fight this way and far more strategic."

It's absurd, it's DOS, not BG.