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

I wonder how much of the tedium you experience is down to you having wiped the camp out a gazillion times just for the heck of it. And how much is down to the game still not having implemented a difficulty rating. Larian is still using the EA "death map" metrics to tweak individual encounters, but not all combat scenarios *should* be equally hard or indeed that much of a challenge. Especially given Larian's stubborn love for exploitative/cheesy gameplay mechanics that allow for overly easy wins.

Even so, the tactical turn-based combat of BG3 is VASTLY superior to the RTwP combat in BG1-2 or Pathfinder games in my opinion. RTwP is a relic of a bygone era unless implemented like a Diablo-style click-fest with all trash mobs all the time.

I agree with you about the difficulty levels not yet available in BG3 and how that could make some difference.

But of course I disagree with the last part. TB combat is the older system by far and not RTwP, so it is TB that's a relic of the past. The very act of taking turns to engage in combat makes the system tedious, boring, and unrealistic. In fact I would go even further and classify taking turns for combat as the ultimate expression of cheesiness.

I actually find RTWP unrealistic. I am 1 person. I cannot manage and shouldn't have to manage an entire party all at the same flipping time or they start acting like idiots either doing nothing or doing something stupid that gets themselves and/or the whole party killed.

Turn based allows you to act as 1 person at a time so you can make intelligent decisions during combat so your characters aren't going based off npc moronic scripts that have your party members chasing a single orc into a hive of other orcs before you can even realize what they've done. (True story from NWN2. Idiot Qara just kept running into orc squads until she died. Then like 20 orcs came for the rest of the party.)

I also hated when characters would waste powerful spells on almost dead enemies or healing potions when 2 seconds ;after my cleric was already cued up to heal them. I HATE RTWP. It's why I never finished NWN2 and TOB. I got to the end of TOB and stopped because I couldn't figure out why I was constantly dying on easiest mode. Characters all over the place and no idea why certain attacks weren't connecting or why a character was roaming off. I watched someone else beat it because it frustrated me so.

But isn't this a limitation of you as the player? I don't say this as a put-down in any way. I myself cannot handle button-mashing style of RT combat in action games. But as far as RTwP cRPGs go, I have played every single one of them if they were in the fantasy genre, and have comfortably got through every single combat encounter in them using RTwP. For me it's RTwP that comes *naturally* and TB feels very artificial and fake.

As I have said before, I believe it actually comes down to there being two types of gamers with respect to combat: those who need their combat actions to work out optimally (perhaps even perfectly), and those who don't care if their combat actions are non-optimal or wasteful so long as they end up with the win (and ideally a fast win). Those people in the former group love TB combat. Those in the latter group love RTwP.

I would not mind having the option, but I wouldn't play real-time-with pause for the most part. I find it detracts from having fun in this case as that experience is not what I'm looking for when I pick up a D&D game. It's a big part of why I didn't finish BG1 or 2, actually.

I'm fine with the option of RTWP as well, but I certainly would never play it. I'm not opposed to them adding RTWP if they have the budget for it for people who love it. I, personally, would go from loving this game to not loving this game if they exclusively made it RTWP. That's all I'm saying.

AND... if it was add RTWP or Day/Night Cycle and weather conditions? I'd pick Day/Night Cycle and weather conditions... that's where I'm coming from.

I'd put 6-person party over RTWP as an option on my end.

+100

If you're using limitations of a player as an argument, wouldn't it go the other way around as well? That you as a player has a limitations for turn base game because you can't stand the "boring" long turn concept and mainpy because you lack the ability to enjoy it.
And no offense to you too.

Real time combat is the one thing that Larian probably can't implement in, no matter what argument anyone brings up.

Mainly because the game wasn't made with that game style in mind. It's like asking Baldur's gate 2 to be turnt into a DMC game. They'd have to start over, and no one has the fund or time to give them the incentive to do so.

Both style are enjoyable in their way though.
But the pausing and unpausing technically is kind of similar to playing turn base already tbh. Both have pros and cons.

One thing that continues to bother me in all of these discussions about the combat system is that while you don't see anyone here insisting they won't play the game just because it is TB, there are several people posting that they would essentially boycott the game if it were RTwP. I think that says something about the TB fans versus the RtwP fans. It makes me wonder if I should also consider boycotting games for no other reason than because they're TB.

There's a difference. Unless you are good at it, RTWP is very frustrating to people like me. It is chaotic and ai scripts cause characters to do stupid things and get themselves and others killed. They waste spells and potions etc.

You know, it's like playing a game like Halo where you are supposed to be protecting some NPC and they stupidly run in between your gun and the aliens you're shooting at while trying to protect them, so you accidentally shoot and kill them. That's what it's like for me. How frustrating is it when some NPC ai does something to kill you even though you are doing everything in your power to play strategically? It makes me just want to throw the game in the can and never play it again.

With TB, you have full control. If you die, it's all on you. You're the one to blame, not some computer script or ai. So, if I die over and over again, I accept full blame for my own inability to beat the game. It also means that either the developer made the battle too hard, and other players on forums are also saying so, or I just need to learn what I'm doing wrong so I can fix it.

So yeah, I boycott RTWP because it makes the game entirely no fun for me. If BG2 TOB had been TB, I would have finished it. Because it was RTWP, I couldn't. I tried and tried and kept failing because no matter what, I couldn't keep my people alive. Do you know how frustrating that is? You invest tons of hours into a game. You struggle through all those battles where, over and over again, you have to reload because those ai scripts keep causing your characters to stand still and do nothing or run away around the wrong side of the battlefield, or whatever. You put up with it because you love the story and the characters...

... but you can never actually beat it all because the gameplay is so frustrating and you can't figure out how to get the dang ai scripts to work well with you as opposed to against you. Minsc would just sit there and die for no reason unless I'd click on him and tell him what to do, or Jaheira would run up to a demon and attack close range when I'd tell her over and over again to fight from the back using spells. I'd tell her to heal someone, and she'd start on her way to do so, but then for some reason her "get up close and fight in melee range" script would kick in and she'd never heal the person.

Or if I set the script to ranged attack and she ran out of ammunition, she'd just sit there doing nothing. I mean, over and over again I'd wrestle with the dumb scripts trying to get my characters to respond well.

I'll never forget the stupid beholder lair in the Underdark. Ugh! Talk about frustrating. I can't tell you how many times, for some stupid reason, SEVERAL of my characters would just run right into the midst of every stinking beholder and minion there was. Then they'd get pummelled and just die. RELOAD!

And it wasn't just BG1 and 2. It was the same with Icewind Dale and with NWN 2. Darn characters kept getting themselves killed, wasting spells, etc.

The only RTWP experience I had that was decent was KOTOR 1 and 2, and even that was a bit frustrating at times. For the most part, the cue up system worked, and I did enjoy some element of fast paced combat. Still, it wasn't great.

In short, although TB is slower, I have absolute control so my companions all work together as one Intelligent, cohesive unit. It makes all the difference in games like this.

I agree completely. And the only reason it was relatively ok is that there is a very limited number of abilites you can take and use, almost no variety in the types of characters you control (gameplaywise), so you don't have to micromanage everything like in the more dndesque RTWP games. The moment it becomes more complex is the moment the game turns into a cumbersome drag. At least for me.

I paused so much in RTWP games, it might as well have been turn based. It was the only way to ensure people didn't do something stupid.

It's understandable because some players actually can't deal with RTWP cause of all the unending pausing and micromanagement, it's essentially unplayable to them. In tough fights things can get very confusing with everyone acting at the same time, and may be too fast for many players to keep track of everything. I understand that's not enjoyable. On the other hand, for those who are comfortable with RTWP, they generally can handle TB just fine; the worst it can be is that they would find it slow and boring, but it's not a big deal.

Well, for me the simplicity (yes it is TB that is tactically simplistic and RTwP that is tactically complex and superior), superficiality, immersion-breaking, and mind-numbing tedium of TB *is* a very big deal. But I still haven't ever boycotted a game just because of it.

RTWP forces you to either be good at pausing the game and micromanaging your party, or be good at programming your companions to be effective without your input. That's it. These are the only things that make it more complex tactically. I myself prefer a slower, more thoughtful approach to my characters' actions. Helps the immersion a great deal, by the way, because you have enough time and opportunity to switch between playstyles and mindsets of your partymembers, and make them feel unique and organic.

I particularly prefer RTWP because I don't like having to manage more than one character. My goal is to play a character who is part of a party, not to play with the entire party. That's why the possibility of having 6 characters in the game is a nightmare for me.

But on the other hand, turn-based combat suits perfectly with D&D – much more than RTWP. So, in my opinion, BG3 is much better with TB. To implement RTWP, it would be necessary to have a very, very good AI for the other characters in the party (something similar to POE Deadfire or DA Inquisition has).

Slower equals less complex and not more complex. Complexity is having to make sound judgments and choices quickly. Complexity is having to react quickly, even nearly simultanously, to another's actions. If you can take all day to make your decisions, that then that makes it less tactical, less complex, and at the same time incredibly boring and stupid. It's the easiest thing in the world to do something well/perfectly if you have all day to do it, which is also what makes it immersion-breaking because it is completely unrealistic. That's why even in chess, the classic and quintessential example of a TB combat game, there is a timer for your actions if you're playing the game the true and correct way.

And if we're going to use the "It's D&D and D&D is TB" line, then it's also the case that many, perhaps even most, DMs and certainly any good DM will insist their players make their decisions and actions within a certain time limit and will refuse to give players an indefinite amount of time to take their actions. So to keep it more true to TT D&D, maybe what Larian should do is add a timer to the turns for each character.

Look. In theory, RTWP is superior. I have no problem admitting that it is more realistic in the sense that everyone is moving and doing at the same time. There is no, "He moved, then bad guy 1 moved..." as if an enemy is just waiting for you to move 30 feet and attack him. It's also faster paced, if all the characters do what you want them to.

In fact, I'll wager that there is not a DM in the world who would say they WOULDN'T prefer to have a way to run battles in TT using RTWP if it was possible. The issue is the execution of it. Having all enemies and allies moving at once is chaotic and difficult to track.

I've even thought up ways a video game could do something quasi-TB/RTWP where you enter actions for all your party, telling them who to move towards and attack and with what, then the game unpauses, all characters move at once, do exactly what you said, and then it autopauses because the round is over and a new round is beginning. So the main difference is it is still round based, but instead of initiative order everyone moves and does their actions at the same time. Initiative still comes into play, but only if someone's attack would impact someone else's.

The problems for me with RTWP is scripts and I can never tell when a character has completed a move or attack that I told them to do or whether my weapons or spells are effective or not. So I would tell Minsc to shoot at someone and I would look away for a sec and wonder if he had shot yet or not. Just as I'd tell him to move somewhere, I'd see him pull his bow back like he was about to shoot, and he'd cancel the move and go where I told him. If I'd known he was going to shoot that second, I'd have waited a bit longer.

Or, in the case of the final battle in Throne of Bhaal, I had to pause a thousand times and look at the battle logs. Were my characters simply not hitting or were they doing no damage because of damage resistance or some damage immunity or something. Or I'd have to pause because I'd notice Imoen wasn't doing anything AGAIN! She'd cast a spell and just stop. I tried a different script and she'd be cued up to cast a spell only to stop and just start firing her bow which would do no damage because whatever it was she was shooting at was immune to her bow's damage, or whatever. It was too hard to figure out what the frick was going wrong.

I don't get that in Turn Based. If a spell doesn't work or a weapon doesn't work, I know after it happens once. My characters don't spend round after round swinging pointlessly before I, the player, realize something's not working right.

It was always things like that which frustrated me, that and party members wasting spells. Shoots a goblin with lightning bolt when it has 4 HP. Stupid. Waste's Magic Missile on a wolf with 2 HP. Why? My fighter was about to kill it.

So if they did a quasi-TB/RTWP, somewhat like the XWing miniatures game, that might be a bit more acceptable, but it would still be hard to determine what went wrong during a particular round and it would still take about as much time as just doing Turn Based mode. But it might be more fun and realistic.

It would work something like this:

Initiative order: Shadowheart, MC, Goblin 1, Gale, Goblin 2, Lae'zel, Goblin 3 and Goblin 4.

First Round. Player selects Shadowheart and commands her to attack Goblin 1 who is within 30 feet of her. So, when the game unpauses, she will run towards Goblin 1 and attack with her mace. Player then selects MC and chooses to have the MC move to behind a rock, use Cunning Action to Hide as a Bonus Action, then come back out from behind the rock and shoot Goblin 2. Player then chooses Gale and orders him to cast Magic Missile at Goblin 3. All 3 missiles will launch at Goblin 3. Finally, Player selects Lae'zel and commands her to run up to Goblin 1, because Goblin 1 is the only one within 30 feet. She will use her Flaming Sword Everburn to attack him. Commands all locked in, Player selects Begin Round.

All characters move at once on the battlefield. While the player was locking in commands for the characters, the AI was locking in commands for the Goblins. So, the computer calculates who is moving where and doing what. Goblin 1 realizes it is in trouble and retreats 30 feet and then fires a bow at Lae'zel. As he moves 30 feet away, Shadowheart and Lae'zel both move 30 feet towards him. Because the computer determines that they will not reach Goblin 1 with melee this round, it auto-switches the characters to ranged weapons and has them fire at Goblin 1. Shadowheart fires first, then Goblin 1, then Lae'zel because that was how they fell in Initiative Order.

Meanwhile, MC was shooting at Goblin 2 who was shooting at Shadowheart and running 30 feet to get to high ground. Goblin 2 came in Initiative Order after Shadowheart and MC, so Shadowheart fires at Goblin 1 before Goblin 2 fires at her, but MC fires at Goblin 2 before it shoots at Shadowheart also. So, let's say Goblin 2 is killed by MC before it can fire in Initiative Order. In that case, it never fires the shot.

Goblin 3 and Goblin 4 were both going to shoot at Gale, but they were charging at him. So they run 30 feet towards the PCs and shoot at Gale. However, Gale won initiative, so his magic missiles will fly at Goblin 3 before it gets a chance to shoot. Gale kills Goblin 3, but Goblin 4 fires and hits Gale. All these things happened simultaneously. Game pauses.

So it is kind of RTWP except that it is round based instead of each move needing a specific Time Cost. A dagger wouldn't swing once per second versus a greatsword swinging once every 4 seconds or whatever. It would maintain the Turn Based action and bonus action count.

Now that might be fun and might work well. Then you could see your choices played out in realtime as everything moves at once and attacks, and it might not require Larian to set the game up with the whole attacks per second thing. Still, there are other issues with this that I won't go into right now. This is already long enough.

It's interesting you say this because this is what I myself have often proposed as a good approach. And in fact I did play TT D&D with a DM once a long time ago who experimented with something like this. The system itself worked great. The problem was always the players who, coming from their D&D background, constantly wanted to change their actions once they saw what someone else had done. That became annoying and frustrating, both for the DM and for those players like me who were vested in the simultanous-play system.