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.
Last edited by virion; 29/10/2012:53 PM.
Alt+ left click in the inventory on an item while the camp stash is opened transfers the item there. Make it a reality.
