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

There's a simple issue here.

Suppose you put both in. You have to engineer the system to be able to handle, smoothly, both TB and RTWP. There are also things in 5e that just don't work as smoothly in RTWP. Because 5e is all about action economy. You have a set number of "actions" you can perform in a given turn. There are spells that can be cast as a Bonus Action instead of a Standard Action. So, the very design of Action Economy would become problematic in RTWP because unless you have a byzantine level of auto-pause, people will end up not using bonus actions.

I mean, if an enemy gets in melee range of one of my Casters, depending on the layout of the area, I'll either do a Leap/Disengage or I'll do a Shove. That gives my breathing room for casting spells. RTWP doesn't make such tactical decisions as easy of a decision to make.

That's why RTWP is not exactly a good thing, because there are classes that are ONLY strong because they've got good action economy.

Rogue for example can move vast distances in a round via Bonus Action. Far more than anyone else. This gives them a huge advantage in terms of mobility.

I think RTwP should be a thing if it turns out many people want it. I don't see a need for it personally. But if many people want it why not try to convince Larian to get both?

The post below has 2 sections.
I: RTwP vs TB general differences
II: WHY and HOW to implement RTwP


I: RTwP vs TB general differences based on my thoughts and reading a part of the posts here and across the forum.

My 2 cents in this story are that indeed RTwP main issue after me is indeed movement. In the end it's the main difference. If anyone wants to answer my post below keep in mind it revolves about proving movement is the main difference.

Look at the story below and I think most of those who played BG2 with a 4 melee/archer + mage support team will agree.

1)RTWP:
Not sure how your gameplay looked like when playing BG2 but mine was quite simple. AOE SPEED and let's go. I have 5 generic enemies against me + a mage. The fight starts, my mage decides to attack. It turns out the enemy started to cast a spell that might hurt. I recognize the school of magic so i set pause and order to focus this guy.

Oh wait one of the melee characters starts to run on my mage. Pause, body block, keep focusing the other guy.
4 seconds elapsed. First attack due to speed. My fighter/rogue interrupts the spell from the enemy.

Cool. Pause. Sip of tea. Focus the mage. 4 seconds elapse. He's dead?
Unpause right-click enemies one after another. Without the mage they can't do anything(Don't hit me, i know it depends on the fights etc. But most of them from lv 14 onward really look like this based on memories).

My party is exhausted cause the speed spell just got deactivated. Go to sleep. The adventure lasts for 180 days for now cause i sleep every two fights. Every fight i spam speed.

Irenicus dies after a year of the campaign.

Yes, it was more dynamic and chaotic. It allowed for more errors. It didn't make your mage suicide if for some reason you decided defensive spells are for the weak and you're going full glass cannon in TB where you have to observe all enemies ignore everyone and rush to kick gale in the balls while he stands still.

2) TB BG3: Defensive spells, positioning, first arrow sent at their mage. Bridge encounter against the little friends of the dragon rider.

Half of the enemy team jumps through my frontline and rushes for gale. He barely survives despite mage armor.

Shove. Success. He killed one guy on the spot cause high ground. He still can't move cause of the other guy. I could have dis-engaged but then the enemy team will rush for me anyway and I won't launch any spell at all. I launch my lv2 spell and focus the melee guy.

Gale lays on the ground until the fight finishes.

It's not a problem, my cleric is basically half-immortal and can probably solo the game if i was crazy enough to try.

I could avoid his death by disengaging, using a healing potion and backing off. They would have followed him anyways so effectively my mage becomes my tank. Or hoping his defensive spells protect him and they might not. He's already at half hp. He managed to output his damage, i can invest resscources to keep him alive but i decide it's faster to resurrect him afterward. He used his spells anyway.



3)There's only one possible agreement when it comes to RTwP with TB after me: It gives totally different combat experience. TB punishes positioning and spell choice mistakes way more hence why people can be like " my mage dies constantly". ( Someone did a solo run of BG3 with a mage btw. Your mage doesn't need to be dead. He can solo every encounter apparently.). But it's slower and looks less realistic. RTwP is faster.


4)Based on the above and as KentDA specified above it totally changes the balance of classes. I'm a BG2 veteran not a D&D 5th edition expert but the post above mine kinda explains why I felt in BG2 my rogue has to be dual classed with a warrior(pure rogue didn't offer anything special). And why only BG3 teached me going in a fight dressed in a robe isn't like the best idea.

In conclusion:

I'm not sure why this whole discussion is RTwP OR TB. It should be WHY and HOW RTwP.

RTwP pros:
- Fight speed(if you're not hitting pause every 2 seconds like I did, effectively ending up in TB).
- "Realism" as specified in other posts(to some extent).
- Easier positioning adjustment
- Less punishing for positioning hence why leaving more space for the actual fight.

Cons:
- Different game balance is necessary if all classes are supposed to be equally powerful.
- Significant time and money investment from Larian ( They have a project for an AI and are using stats from BG3 to make it learn how to play TB as far as i understand. They work with TB DOS2 and clearly focus on it. Adding RTwP to the engine when it wasn't planned at all is a huge change of plans. It has to be justified from gameplay perspective).
- The entire emphasize on high ground and what goes with it -THE MAP DESIGN - is no longer entirely viable.
- All fights need to be rebalanced for both systems.
- Makes COOP mode way harder to implement. You can pause after each round but then you're still in a turn based mode with chaotic movement. And this is the biggest issue after me.

II: WHY and HOW to implement RTwP
WHY RTwP:

a) Because many people want it?[Do they? Do we have an effective way of measuring it while excluding the possibility of a bot taking part in the vote?] Serious question, not sure how to do it in a way where it could be representative of something and not become a joke of forum dwellers.

b) because of the "pros" listed above.

c) BG2&1 were done this way( By accident as far as I'm aware) but it defined the series in the end. It just creates one more difference from the older series when it comes to the " general feeling".

HOW:

1) We need a way to measure how many people are interested in this outside of this forum. If it ends up being equal to those who still play BG2 nowadays on steam than you can close this thread and forget about it. It won't happen after me in that case. So that's the starting point.

2) We need to define how is the fight going to look in comparison to the actual system changes. Is it doable to take the current combat actions+spells and just move it to RTwP? Cause maybe it could turn out to be an AI + combat system + every single encounter in the game rewamp only. That could make things easier to swallow for Larian. ( It's still a huge thing to swallow).

Every encounter need to be rebalanced or else they will spend their money doing it and they will get negative reviews for the " unplayable and unbalanced RTwP". We effectively want to ask them to do the whole game twice.

I like being able to switch from RTwP to TB in Pathfinder Kingmaker at the press of a button. I like TB for big battles and I switch to RTwP for easy fights and for finishing off the last enemy from a big battle. That freedom is glorious.

I don't think all of this discussion is necessary. Just include both and let both camps be happy.

I'll just say that both obsidian and owlbear, the companies with much less resources, managed to pull it off quite well, so it's possible if Larian wanted to do it. I don't think they do though and and it's not such a big deal.

Thank you!!

Yes, the resources argument is B.S. It is purely a matter of whether they want to do or not.

The resource argument was more of a side note tbh. Smaller studios pulled it off but with ...strange results after me. Regardless, getting a legit number for how many people want it is still the way to go before pushing this discussion further if those who are in this thread consider this seriously.

"I mean, if an enemy gets in melee range of one of my Casters, depending on the layout of the area, I'll either do a Leap/Disengage or I'll do a Shove. That gives my breathing room for casting spells. RTWP doesn't make such tactical decisions as easy of a decision to make."

I don't understand why RTwP doesn't make such tactical decisions as easy of a decision to make ?
I mean, if someone rush on my caster. First of all, I pause (xD) then I have a lot of possibilities.
1) sendig a mates to intercept him
2) using a mates to cast an interceptive spell
3) disengage and run away with my caster
4) shove with my caster
5) keep incanting, crossing fingers to not be interrupted before the end of it.
and there could be more possibilities depending of items, level, spells, etc.

As I already said, I dont get the point of Larian saying turn-based was more strategic.

I heard the question about how to implement it but I think it's a... it's not an unsolvable problem. Other games did it (and I loved them : BG, PoE, PKM, Temple of EE, etc) so it's not a real issue, it's just a question of will.
You said something about the Rogue. I don't see the problem. In RTwP he will move faster than the others. ^^

I completely agree with kingnothing69 !

I'll also add that out of these three companies, Owlbear did it best. I couldn't believe I can just turn it on and off it's amazing. I found that RTwP works best with mobs but I really enjoy turn base in boss fights

Hey they're not a ferocious owlBEAR. They're a cute little owl-kittyCAT!

huh.... never noticed it. always called them owlbear lol

Si dejan ambas estaría genial para las personas prefieren jugar con pausa pero si dejen los turnos si solo pueden dejar uno también está bien ya que todos sus vivo en Youtube dijeron lo que se vería de Baldur Gate era incorporar una historia alterna nunca dijeron iba ser la misma manera que se jugaban los anteriores . En mi opinion solo me gustaban los Baldur gate por su historia pero no su sistema de pausa muy molesto era.

That is all well and fine in theory but what every one fails to keep in mind or they just have selective memory but Swen from Larian has said that BG3 will be turn based only there will be no RTwP.

Well yeah and they try to convince Larian to implement it. Nothing wrong about it.

I think that both this comment and the response that virion provided below it ("Well yeah and they try to convince Larian to implement it. Nothing wrong about it.") are important points that everyone involved in this discussion should keep in mind.

People can keep trying to fight for RTwP forever, and it's completely cool. But don't forget that Larian were very clear about their intentions. I see too many people coming to these forums feeling cheated and I think it's not fair, because if there is one thing that Larian was clear about is this.

I certainly love turn based more in games, but some fights in BG3 did make me wish there was a way to enable real-time mode. Talking about various fights where you already eliminated the actual threat and you have just to mop up a swarm of weak enemies that don't realy pose a threat but take another 20 minutes to complete.

Something like goblin camp temple courtyard, you take out the ogre, a few goblin warriors/dogs and after that it's just a mop up because all the remaining trash there has snowball's chance in hell of downing you anyway. Problem is that with turn based it's just a total pointless chorebore - it's not a challenge, just a massive waste of time while you wait for all those 15 actors to do their useless turns, so you can miss on yours and drag this all on.

I never, ever liked RTWP in CRPGs.
Even some of my all times favorites like Darklands, Ultima VII and then BG2 (the title that arguably put the mechanic up to more modern standards) were good in spite of it and not because of it.
I find the mechanic invariably shallow, a bad compromise.

That said, I realized just today that there's something good I could say about it: if Larian was somehow forced to adjust the game to work with RTWP, maybe we could have party controls during the exploration phase that didn't blow dirty asses.

Because yes, having RTWP would make it basically mandatory to adjust controls. It would be utterly unthinkable to try and control the party in combat in real time (with pause or not, it hardly matters) with the current scheme.

I'm not posting on this thread because I feel cheated. I'm posting because I believe they were wrong in their choice, and I hope to be able to persuade them to provide an alternative option for those who may want it.

People still posting here like Larian actually gives a fck lmao

If you think they are going to implement RTwP you're delusional. Maybe we will get a mod for it but who knows. They just go ahead and make Baldurs Gate: Original Sin 3 and call it a day. Lame cashgrab but it is what it is.

Personally? I don't even want to. I absolutely despise RTWP as a mechanic.

I was just chiming in to comment on a side note, but as far as I'm concerned this thread doesn't even serve any purpose in this section, which is supposed to be all about filtering the valuable feedback from the background noise.
And yet this is a completely pointless discussion, because Larian has been anything but ambiguous about the fact that is NOT going to happen.

check the comment below yours lol