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

Yeah I agree. Unlike some rabid TB fans who will actively boycott games that are RTwP, I don't do that with TB games. I am open to still playing a TB game even though I know I will not enjoy the combat, because everything outside of combat in a cRPG is what I am ultimately a fan of.

There are actually four core attributes of video games that make or break my enjoyment of them, and the combat system is the lowest in rank order among them.

Just thought I would chime in. I love both RTwP and TB games, as long as the game is optimized for one or the other. DAO had excellent RTwP because of the spell cooldown system AND the ability to set deep tactics for the whole party. I adored it. DAI on the other hand tried to shoe horn RTwP into a game clearly designed to be button mashing hack n slash, and it was awful. The tactical camera was an abysmal joke.

I dig the TB in this game. However, I wish the linked party members would not activate their spells/actions until you choose them all. Ie, if they are linked, then they are supposed to be acting simultaneously, and it is pointless if they do mot. That is the only real improvement that needs to be made in regards to TB in the game.

Also, with this type of system, I probably would not play it if it was RTwP. I feel like I would constantly be pausing and confused. But that is just me.

Straight up have to disagree with you completely.

Some of you have never imagined how grand BG1 and BG2 could have been with turns instead of RTwP.

Besides, DND is a turn based game. Oh wow, thats the end of the argument...

No, this is not an argument. In fact it is completely irrelevant as we are not discussing a tabletop game here.

I am at a loss as to the objective here though, clearly this is a turn-based game and that is not going to change. So is this just a safe-space to grouse or is it more for purposes of mourning?

The good RTwP games have tons of triggers for auto-pausing, which is critical so you're not constantly mashing the pause button in combat. I like the TB combat in BG3, but as you said, actual simultaneous action would be very nice.

What I really want to see in BG3 is a real pause feature added to the non-combat real time. Maybe I'm stalking a creature and want to make a number of simultaneous movement/action commands to party members. I'd pause, give each character their marching order, and unpause. Need to get up for some reason? I wish I could actually pause the game. It's not like anything is likely to happen if the party just stands there twiddling their thumbs, but still, it feels off to not have a for-realzies pause feature

Probably a little of both. Certainly we RTwP fans understand Larian, unlike wonderful Owlcat, is not going to give us that option.

I've been asking for this myself. Apparently their engine doesn't allow it or some such, which makes their engine lame beyond comprehension and the worst engine ever.

I sure love RTWP games and the trash mobs they have to add everywhere to pad gametime, and then allowing unlimited rests to compensate for the trash mobs
(lol)

Ditto with TB games.

I hate RTWP. The only plus for them is combat is faster in terms of 1 minute in game time is 1 minute in real life; roughly.

What RTWP doesn't have that TB has:

1. I get to manage each character's moves and attacks strategically every round.
2. I don't have to rely on scripts to manage my characters, which means that my characters do exactly what I want them to do and I don't have characters roaming off after some random enemy and triggering more enemies into the fight and thus getting overwhelmed (this happened to me so many times in Neverwinter Nights 2). Scripts also cause unwanted and unexpected things like your characters wasting healing potions, spells, etc. or simply not fighting when they should be.
3. I get to see the characters actually use their spells and abilities and weapons, and I know exactly which they are using and what they are doing. In RTWP, half the time I have no idea what my other party members are doing. I have to constantly pause and switch characters to see what's been cued up in their cue list. Then, sometimes, even that isn't exactly what they are doing two seconds later because they are hit by some spell or ability that messes up what I told them to do.

There are so many other things I hate about it, but these are the biggest. Yes, the combat moves faster, but in order to control RTWP well, you have to pause so freaking much to ensure everyone is actually fighting, actually using what spells and abilities you want them to use, and overall simply NOT dying.

In TB, I see every action that happens and I can plan accordingly to try to coordinate my party's actions. There are no status effects that suddenly pop up out of nowhere that I didn't notice because I'm trying to manage 4-6 characters all at the same time. There are no unexpected scripts being weird and making my characters do weird random things. I control my characters so they act intelligently during each and every round.

And if TB is done well, like in other games like Pathfinder and Solasta, it isn't that slow.

X-Com is a perfect example. In the War of the Chosen DLC for X-Com 2, you can fight HORDES of Zombie-like Lost. Here's an idea! Just like in X-com 2 War of the Chosen, have the creatures that are all the same act on the same round as a unit. So, five goblins move at the same time and all shoot at the same time in Initiative order. It can be just that fast. My MC moves and shoots. It's the goblins' turn. 5 goblins move and attack all at the same time. The game makes 5 rolls to see if they hit all at once. They need an 18 to hit my character and have a +4 to hit. So every goblin that rolls a 14 hits. Damage rolls are also rolled and applied at the same time. Done. Next person's turn in Initiative order. It doesn't have to be one goblin at a time. Goblins fight in packs. So why not have the game group them in units instead of always breaking it out into individual initiative order?

Anyway, that's my two cents on RTWP versus TB. I suck at RTWP. One of the greatest appeals to me about BG3 is that it is TB. I don't care if Larian adds RTWP at some point. Just don't take away my TB.

I love both RTWP and Turn-Based. RTWP offers things like better synergies or proc rate with stuff like 33% chance to stun etc as more turns can be spent faster compared with turn-based. Both has it's pro and cons. I think RTWP gameplay can still be further improvised. The thing is that most implementation or execution of RTWP were quite messy. Turn-based provide a different gameplay where it's more managed and each actions and results can be easily visualized. If i were to make my own game, i would be combining both.

One thing that this thread really illustrates is that you can't actually have an objective debate as to which of RTwP and TB is "better", since the answer is subjectively dependent on each player's preferences.

Two posts up, @GM4Him gives a perfectly rational explanation of why TB is preferable, but the rationale is based on personal likes and dislikes. If another player's preferences are the opposite of @GM4Him, that player would conclude that RTwP is preferable.

The more RPGs I play, the more I wish they would emphasise other aspects of roleplaying than combat/conflict, which is almost always the most lame part of the game.

Agree completely, and especially the last part. That is why I am very intrigued by and looking forward to hearing more about Sawyer's current RPG project at Obsidian, because it is said to be a no-combat story RPG.

Consider this as well. Right now, in a typical RPG, every character's "stats," which is to say such things as attributes, skills, abilities, etc., are overwhelmingly centered on and geared towards combat in the game. Imagine what one could do in those areas, the extent to which one could be truly innovative and ground-breaking, if you didn't have to define/orient/balance any of those stats for combat?

I don't think BG3 will ever have RTwP. The way i see it is that the number of encounters in DOS2/BG3 are limited and it was designed for turn-based. With RTwP combat may resolves or complete much quicker and perhaps making DOS2 a much shorter game especially there's no trash encounter.

I think that's one of the reason perhaps Larian will never put a RTwP in it? Just my observations.

I think it's certain RTwP will not be part of the game.

Quite so. But I strongly disagree that combat is limited in the D:OS games and that they don;t have any trash encounters. Furthermore, at least in what we have been able to see so far, BG3 is pretty much ALL about combat and far too little else.

Well, I do think it's an area where you should give them more credit.
Every single encounter in their games is usually a one-time thing and pretty much every major fight introduces at least one new factor to consider.
They are also among the very few games that are STILL introducing new stuff and entirely unique enemy models dozens of hours into a campaign and up to the later acts.

Conversely, it's also true that some of the worst "cheesy mechanics" and overpowered combos that they love to actively encourage at some point start to become prevalent to the point where they actively "muffle" the tactical depth of some of their encounter design.


EDIT - Oh damn, somehow I ended in the "real-time combat" thread.

By "limited" and "trash encounters" he probably meant repeatable random encounters with trash mobs. Which is a bit of a shame, because random encounters can be fun. They make your playthrough less predictable. They can also make you feel that the world is responding to what you've done, if you get different encounters depending on past events. There are also the super rare and easter egg kinds of random encounters, which can also be interesting.

Oh you mean encounters repeatedly spawning in areas, like in DA:I. Okay fair enough. But for me a trash mob fight is any encounter, even a so-called "hand-crafted" encounter, where I have to fight a gazillion enemies just for the heck of it -- which is how I view the goblin camp encounter in BG3. The original BG games also had these, the gnoll stronghold being a great example. But at least there you could just auto-mow through the hordes and be done with it, which I vastly prefer to the tedium of the BG3 goblin camp fight.

I played all the Pillars franchise and Pathfinder Kingmaker in real time with pause. I enjoyed these games, no question about it.

However, I am actually happy I will get the chance to play a game that is made to be turn based for a change. I am fully in support of the turn based decision. 5e is also designed to be played in turns as a tabletop. Regardless, it is the plot that makes Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate. Not the way it works (real time or turn based) or the edition of rules it has used (5e is actually a big improvement on the 2e set of rules).

Just personal opinion