The dynamics of combat in Turn based vs Real Time gameplay

[The Great ThunThun*]

Real-Time combat is inherently fast. It takes less time on the screen to resolve and involves lots of agile action from the players. If we think of combat encounter density as the number of encounters per map, then RT can handle a very large density simply because the time required to complete each encounter is small. In contrast to that, Turn Based combat is slower because each turn is executed by the AI outside of the player actions and that can take a lot of time. In general, this means that one can not have too many encounters in a turn-based game or else it can quickly feel bloated.

I think this means when the game is being designed you have to take into account this consideration. You can not swap one mechanics for the other willy-nilly without completely mucking up the pacing and the responsiveness of the game. This is why a TB/RT game i.e. where you can switch between both mechanics (Arcanum) is a bad idea.

Thoughts?

 

[CryptRat]

Real-Time combat is inherently fast.

No it's not, turn-based mode can go as fast as the player clicks while real-time requires some form of fixed real-time speed (+ cooldowns) or any enemy would kill you before you can do anything.

In practice that verifies in blobber, where turn-based is faster than real-time. I think Dungeon Master let you throw items as fast as you can and if you're very, very fast throwing and picking you can probably make it quick, but it's like ignoring stats and all and in practice you're not fast enough anyway.

However with some form of individual character movements and if you control more than one character then yes TB can be and is often slower, but then it's to wonder if you want some Warcraft-like combat where half of your characters act as a pack just automatically regularly dealing sword slashes, that's very unfun to me, it's fast because you don't have full control so I'm not sure it's a very honest argument (totally automatic combat would be even faster). It also has nothing to do with PnP anymore, where you want either simultaneous decision and sequential resolution, and it works fine without movements, or with movements I think it's better directly using real turns, with sequential decision and, potentially delayed, sequential resolution.

RT is bad and that's all (of course controlling a pack in real-time out of combat is fine, especially if you control more than one character because then turn-based out of combat is boring). And yes combat is bad if you control only character among 6 party members, which has not much to do with it being RT/TB.

 

[Safav Hamon]

Turn-based is often faster than RTwP because you don't need to continuously pause to decipher the ongoing clusterfuck.

 

[Safav Hamon]

Deadfire also has a slider that lets you speed up combat animations

 

[mondblut]

Turn-based combat is so slow, you often have to throttle dosbox at 10% performance to make use of it. If not for the glorious realtime where we can see everyone limping around paraplegically and play a gorillon of animations per swordstrike at a fixed framerate, I don't know how could we live.

 

[Dorateen]

one can not have too many encounters in a turn-based game

One can never have enough encounters in a competent turn-based game.

Some of the elegant design of the Gold Box games is that enemies could break morale and flee battle, or outright surrender. A cleric might wipe out dozens of undead, clearing the field in one turn with an efficient turn ability. The same for fighters who could sweep through low hit dice fodder. This allows large scale encounters to be broken down relatively quickly. Dungeons therefore can be populated with a high density of combat, both hand placed and random or wandering monsters.

 

[Sigourn]

Instead of worrying about which one is faster, I would worry about making the combat as fast as possible as it needs to be in each specific game. Slow combat, that is, "slower than it needs to be", is something that needs to be corrected all the time unless you are one of those people who think there's charm in a poorly designed game.

e.g. Fallout is nice and all, but in larger encounters the animations would drive me mad, especially when fighting dogs. While you can speed up animations, this only shows that some animations were indeed far too slow.

 

[Sigourn]

I am arguing for games should be slow or fast. This is not a thread about TB ><=? RT. I am arguing about how each mechanics affects combat pacing. I could be wrong about the OP, and that TB can have fast encounter pacing. I would just like to hear arguments on either side.

Different mechanics have different pacing. I don't think it's matter of "is it better slow or fast?", but a matter of "does the game have the optimum speed?". Both "slow" and "fast" are negatives, I want a game where I don't feel like it's going too fast, and where I don't feel like I'm wasting too much time.

I don't mind turn-based combat, just like I don't mind RTwP, just like I don't mind real time. My issue with RTwP is related to a different aspect, I feel like I'm never in control and I would much prefer turn-based. In that regard, you could say I think RTwP is "fast", that is, too fast.

 

[Strange Fellow]

I could be wrong about the OP, and that TB can have fast encounter pacing.

You are. Gold Box has a higher encounter frequency than BG, but depending on how fast you can read and parse what's going on on the screen (and formulate your strategy, of course), a single encounter in GB resolves faster than the same encounter would in the Infinity Engine, in part because you can speed up combat as much as you want, and in part because of the features Dorateen mentions. I sure hope you've played at least one of the GB games, because it's the best way to cure the "TB=slow" ignorance, and it's a good way to compare since GB and BG run very similar RPG systems.

Edit: I almost forgot the most important reason: Some of them are very good!

 

[Lagi]

turn-base is fast, only if there is no animation.
I want instant move and instant attacks.

OR

if I could issue next orders without waiting for the current animation (movement/attack) to finish. But I never saw it implemented.

======
real-time is always too fast, and too clusterfuck - but at least i dont waste time.

 

[Sigourn]

turn-base is fast, only if there is no animation.
I want instant move and instant attacks.

OR

if I could issue next orders without waiting for the current animation (movement/attack) to finish. But I never saw it implemented.

Imagine a cinematic mode. You play with instant move and instant attacks, but once you finish you can choose to view a replay of the fight playing out in (almost) real time with characters moving and attacking at the same time, complete with animations. It would make big battles that much spectacular.

 

[hellbent]

Turn-based is often faster than RTwP because you don't need to continuously pause to decipher the ongoing clusterfuck.

Not to mention hunting pixels to see where the web/grease/fire AOE has actually spread and going back through the combat log one line at a time to figure out who resisted spells or if your weapons are effective vs the enemies in question.

 

[Tygrende]

Real-Time combat is inherently fast.

Roguelikes beg to differ.

 

[Lagi]

...

Imagine a cinematic mode. You play with instant move and instant attacks, but once you finish you can choose to view a replay of the fight playing out in (almost) real time with characters moving and attacking at the same time, complete with animations. It would make big battles that much spectacular.

You can not do it - flawless. Because one character f.ex die before the last participant on the queue make an action. (RT or not) Simultaneous outcome is different than turn based.
And even if, for what - to waste 2x more time?

edit:

yeah "simultaneous" - i'm so retarded, and you are so superior

why do you want to watch replay of combat you just finish is beyond me

 

[samuraigaiden]

Turn-based can also be simultaneous or asymmetrical.

 

[samuraigaiden]

Phase-based is a form of turn-based, not a third category.

An example of asymmetrical turn-based would be Grandia, where the actions are determined within a unit's turn, but the turn order itself is determined by a timer that moves at a different speed for each unit and will slow down or speed up as a result of the actions.

 

[JarlFrank]

I think this means when the game is being designed you have to take into account this consideration. You can not swap one mechanics for the other willy-nilly without completely mucking up the pacing and the responsiveness of the game. This is why a TB/RT game i.e. where you can switch between both mechanics (Arcanum) is a bad idea.

No. Good encounter design is good encounter design. Bad encounter design is bad encounter design.

Real time just makes shitty encounter design more bearable because it's over quicker. That doesn't mean you should throw trash mobs at the player. It doesn't make fighting trash mobs any more engaging. Just because it's more bearable doesn't mean it magically becomes good.

 

[Metronome]

I was going to make a thread discussing the various approaches to "time" in games, but it looks like most of that discussion would be happening here. It also looks like you all understand the terminology better than me anyway.

Real-Time combat is inherently fast. It takes less time on the screen to resolve and involves lots of agile action from the players. If we think of combat encounter density as the number of encounters per map, then RT can handle a very large density simply because the time required to complete each encounter is small. In contrast to that, Turn Based combat is slower because each turn is executed by the AI outside of the player actions and that can take a lot of time. In general, this means that one can not have too many encounters in a turn-based game or else it can quickly feel bloated.

My biggest problem with Real-time is that the player's reflexes are a factor. I'm not complaining because my reflexes are bad either. Let's say you play a character like a rogue who is supposed to eventually have superhuman reflexes. You can make his animations faster, but you can't make the player any quicker to react. You could give the player some kind of advantage to supplement their poor skill, but then the rogue just becomes the "noob class" and not a roleplaying choice.

Comparing real-time and turn based systems then is like comparing two different genres. There isn't a right way to do it unless you are a genrefag and just want to play one kind of game. Real time with optional turns is just turn based with the equivalent of auto-explore/auto-combat. Real-time becomes a convenience option because it's not what you are being tested on anyway.

 

[Ranarama]

Turn based *should* be faster. AI turns should be instant. Too many developers like fucking Larian make you sit through the same tedious animations of lethargic NPCs waddling over, as if I gave a shit.

But it doesn't matter. What matters is how dense the strategic decisions are. Turn based combats can have interesting decisions every turn, whereas real-time combat have them less often. If real-time combat does become strategy heavy, then you're pausing all the time anyway. Not always the case, turn-based combat is just an almost necessary condition for good strategic combat, not a sufficient one.

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

turn-base is fast, only if there is no animation.
I want instant move and instant attacks.

OR

if I could issue next orders without waiting for the current animation (movement/attack) to finish. But I never saw it implemented.

Imagine a cinematic mode. You play with instant move and instant attacks, but once you finish you can choose to view a replay of the fight playing out in (almost) real time with characters moving and attacking at the same time, complete with animations. It would make big battles that much spectacular.

battlestar galactica game has something like that. Its simultaneous based turns, but after the battle you can play a movie of the whole thing and watch it and rotate the camera around from any angle and view it however you like.

 

[Tigranes]

I was going to make a thread discussing the various approaches to "time" in games, but it looks like most of that discussion would be happening here. It also looks like you all understand the terminology better than me anyway.

Real-Time combat is inherently fast. It takes less time on the screen to resolve and involves lots of agile action from the players. If we think of combat encounter density as the number of encounters per map, then RT can handle a very large density simply because the time required to complete each encounter is small. In contrast to that, Turn Based combat is slower because each turn is executed by the AI outside of the player actions and that can take a lot of time. In general, this means that one can not have too many encounters in a turn-based game or else it can quickly feel bloated.

My biggest problem with Real-time is that the player's reflexes are a factor. I'm not complaining because my reflexes are bad either. Let's say you play a character like a rogue who is supposed to eventually have superhuman reflexes. You can make his animations faster, but you can't make the player any quicker to react. You could give the player some kind of advantage to supplement their poor skill, but then the rogue just becomes the "noob class" and not a roleplaying choice.

Comparing real-time and turn based systems then is like comparing two different genres. There isn't a right way to do it unless you are a genrefag and just want to play one kind of game. Real time with optional turns is just turn based with the equivalent of auto-explore/auto-combat. Real-time becomes a convenience option because it's not what you are being tested on anyway.

In what RTWP game do you need anything approaching good reflexes? In what RTWP game does superhuman reflexes give you an edge over an average person's? This is a weird and obscure tree to climb.

If you are somehow cursed with horrific reflexes, then sure, RTWP sucks (more).

 

[Harthwain]

My biggest problem with Real-time is that the player's reflexes are a factor. I'm not complaining because my reflexes are bad either. Let's say you play a character like a rogue who is supposed to eventually have superhuman reflexes. You can make his animations faster, but you can't make the player any quicker to react. You could give the player some kind of advantage to supplement their poor skill, but then the rogue just becomes the "noob class" and not a roleplaying choice.

Side note: in Star Wars Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast speeding yourself up didn't make you go faster - it made everything around you go slower. So you don't have to make somebody with superhuman reflexes go faster, as much as make everyone else go slower. The end result is the same (you're acting faster), while giving more control to the player as a result.

If a complaint has to be made, then it would be that whenever the real-time is involved your actual skill (as a person) is going to dictate how well you perform (as a character) in game's combat. You can try and manipulate it to a degree (with character skills), but you can't eliminate it. In the turn based approach your individual skill (reflexes) doesn't count towards the combat results, because the combat itself doesn't need that kind of input.

 

[Metronome]

In what RTWP game do you need anything approaching good reflexes? In what RTWP game does superhuman reflexes give you an edge over an average person's? This is a weird and obscure tree to climb.

If you are somehow cursed with horrific reflexes, then sure, RTWP sucks (more).

Kit Walker was advocating for RT and warning against the use of RTWP. So I thought I would bring up when people might prefer RTWP over RT. Allowing for pauses in the action reduces the importance of reflexes for success. RTWP then functions more like a turn-based game where the players reflexes are (mostly) not a factor.

I don't think you need reflexes for any RTWP game that I can think of, but you do benefit from them at least slightly in almost every RT game I can think of. Though there are a few instances where I could see reflexes make a difference even in RTWP games. For example, in Dwarf Fortress you might not notice a dwarf wander by a lever that you need to pull in time. Pressing the pause key a second too late could be disastrous. Though those kind of situations are pretty rare, and that's getting more into the principle of the thing.

 

[Valky]

People who bitch about TB being slow because they don't want to wait for standard animations are extremely confusing and sound like they would prefer awesome buttons that just skip the game and tell them they win. If you are playing a game to get it over with as soon as possible, then you don't like video games.