RTwP is the Same as TB the Only Difference Being You Pick The T

[Strange Fellow]

You know what's a fun turn-based combat encounter? The Temple of Baa.

 

[luj1]

It's a funny thing with the different systems.

I mean, I vehemently hated rtwp for very long, but then I played Kingmaker, and was actually surprised of how well it could work. Sure, it's not perfect, but it's way better than something like poe 1+2 and even baldurs for me.

I still favor TB over RTWP, just because I like the tactical og strategic aspect of things, I like to plan, and I like to watch shit unfold in combat. RTWP can get real clusterfucky, even with constant pauses, you just don't feel the combat the same way. RTWP just doesn't feel as rewarding and as "good" as TB does.

TB feels more deterministic, because you planned your character so well, you made sure you had enough move and actions points to do this and that, you rely on your skills and feats.

Tb just feels alot less "gamey" and way less cheesey.

Obviously shitty TB implementation is never good. D:OS 2 suffered from this as a prime example.
They didn't even have a combat slider to speed up animations and combat, which is ESSENTIAL to TB combat.

TB can get REAL fucking tedious with trash combat, if you don't have mechanics to mitigate the slowness somehow.

As I said, things like slow turn-order, slow animations, dull UI, unintuitive and shoddy graphics can fuck it up, but that goes for any game.

TB is a lot harder to fuck up though.

 

[BING XI LAO]

Yes, but the solution is to have smaller encounters. Even in RTwP or RT having way too many units can obscure and obfuscate the events. Generally, that is a situation reserved for pure strategy games. In RPGs, you'd want a situation where your small group is going around important missions.

Limiting an RPG to only small encounters because your system can't cope with more is not a solution, it's a pathetic failure. How many RPGs naturally feature missions involving entire enemy fortresses?

 

[BING XI LAO]

Even TB that has very fast animations simply can't cope with too many units.

Nothing can cope with too many units. That's why it's too many. Nice try twisting the argument. Yes, a crap-ton of individual units is traditionally not suited for TB, apply for your medal at the desk please.

The difference being that for TB ''too many'' is what, more than a dozen? Which is pathetic.

 

[Daedalos]

If you want to engage masses of enemies in a game, you're playing the wrong genre, friend. That's called Real-Time Strategy.

RPGs should be about unique missions, encounters and events, smaller scaled than RTS and FPS, that may or may not feature several enemies. If you purposely design your TB game to include hours-long fights with 90000 enemies, then you kind of fucked up. D:OS 2 springs to mind again, with really long-winded retarded fights with trash tier mobs in the tens and 20s.

How many PnP sessions feature giant encounters for the party?

 

[Strange Fellow]

You know what's a fun turn-based combat encounter? The Temple of Baa.

BING XI LAO what do you make of this?

 

[JarlFrank]

TB can get REAL fucking tedious with trash combat, if you don't have mechanics to mitigate the slowness somehow.

As I said, things like slow turn-order, slow animations, dull UI, unintuitive and shoddy graphics can fuck it up, but that goes for any game.

Even TB that has very fast animations simply can't cope with too many units.

In Avernum 1 my party was quite weak in the lategame (partly because I didn't notice they had three Dread Curses on them), so I had to start spam summoning things to fight for me, and to eat the multi-target damage spells many enemies have. Some higher-level summons in the game can also summon more summons of their own, and the enemy likes to summon things, so you quite swiftly have dozens of summons on each side. Having to wait ten seconds every time the turn comes around for your eight lava bats to fire their missiles is something that just doesn't happen in RTWP. And it's a shame because these summon wars are a pleasant change of tactics from the rest of the game, but it's limited by TB.

ToEE's simultaneous movement display.

Boom.

 

[JarlFrank]

Also turn based with many units can work well too.

Case in point:
Panzer General, Fantasy General, Age of Fear, Elven Legacy, Warbanners, Steel Panthers, just to mention a couple. Yes, they're all strategy games, but Age of Fear and Warbanners have significant RPG elements (leveling and unit equipping), and they never feel slow at all because animations are super fast and you get a log of actions that happened so you know wtf is going on even when it goes fast.

 

[Quillon]

If you want to engage masses of enemies in a game, you're playing the wrong genre, friend. That's called Real-Time Strategy.

Its strange we can count many genres as RPGs(most of us ) as long as they have story agency, character progression and all that jazz but when it comes to RTS combat, there is "its an RTS game yo, not an RPG" consensus. I'm not a fan of bigger RTS games like Total War but if there was a game in which we play a commander in an army or a king etc who is in command of vast number of units, but still interacts with other characters, makes choices in a hand crafted story(not procedural like Crusader Kings) it should still count as an RPG, one with different combat gameplay.

 

[Ismaul]

Technically seen phase-based could be a subcategory of turn-based, as in "your whole party makes a turn" and "whole enemy party makes a turn".

most (*) phase-based combat is usually of the variety where your chars attack groups of enemies, but can't target specific enemies in that group (except of that groups is just one enemy)

Not really. Phase-based combat is caracterised by a declaration phase and a resolution phase. In the declaration phase, everyone chooses their action(s) for the round, before knowing what others are going to do. Then actions are resolved in order of speed. One interesting thing about phase-based is that the circumstances of execution of an action can be different than when you chose it: the enemy can have moved by then, put up defenses, etc. if their first action is faster than yours.

So it's not "your whole party makes a turn" and "whole enemy party makes a turn", as everyone, allies and enemies, chooses actions at the same time, and then resolves at the same time in order of action speed (and not character speed). A character might make more than one action, the second ones being delayed by the first and happening after others acted in-between.

And the ability to target groups or individuals is an independent consideration from the system being phase-based or not.

Basically, phase-based is about simultaneous declaration of action, and then simultaneous resolution, while turn based is sequential, each player choosing and doing all their actions at once before moving on to the next.

 

[fantadomat]

Also turn based with many units can work well too.

Case in point:
Panzer General, Fantasy General, Age of Fear, Elven Legacy, Warbanners, Steel Panthers, just to mention a couple. Yes, they're all strategy games, but Age of Fear and Warbanners have significant RPG elements (leveling and unit equipping), and they never feel slow at all because animations are super fast and you get a log of actions that happened so you know wtf is going on even when it goes fast.

Anything like Elven Legacy/fantasy war?

 

[theSavant]

Technically seen phase-based could be a subcategory of turn-based, as in "your whole party makes a turn" and "whole enemy party makes a turn".

most (*) phase-based combat is usually of the variety where your chars attack groups of enemies, but can't target specific enemies in that group (except of that groups is just one enemy)

Not really. Phase-based combat is caracterised by a declaration phase and a resolution phase. In the declaration phase, everyone chooses their action(s) for the round, before knowing what others are going to do. Then actions are resolved in order of speed. One interesting thing about phase-based is that the circumstances of execution of an action can be different than when you chose it: the enemy can have moved by then, put up defenses, etc. if their first action is faster than yours.

So it's not "your whole party makes a turn" and "whole enemy party makes a turn", as everyone, allies and enemies, chooses actions at the same time, and then resolves at the same time in order of action speed (and not character speed). A character might make more than one action, the second ones being delayed by the first and happening after others acted in-between.

And the ability to target groups or individuals is an independent consideration from the system being phase-based or not.

Basically, phase-based is about simultaneous declaration of action, and then simultaneous resolution, while turn based is sequential, each player choosing and doing all their actions at once before moving on to the next.

You got that right. Only when I think of Bard's Tale 4 the combat is really "first your whole party - and then other whole party", but when I wrote my previous post I only had the Wizardries in mind, so you are correct that phase based is determined by a declaration phase and resolution phase.

 

[theSavant]

Phase-based combat is discriminated. It should be used more often in polls and games.

Out of the 2 types of combat (Wizardry's phase-based or Bard's Tale's 4 party-turn-based), I'm not sure which is better. Though I think that phase-based is more balanced in the long run. The combat in BT4 allows the starting party to focuse all attacks of his party on a specific enemy character and thereby kill or weaken the enemy significantly before he can even make a move.

 

[JarlFrank]

Also turn based with many units can work well too.

Case in point:
Panzer General, Fantasy General, Age of Fear, Elven Legacy, Warbanners, Steel Panthers, just to mention a couple. Yes, they're all strategy games, but Age of Fear and Warbanners have significant RPG elements (leveling and unit equipping), and they never feel slow at all because animations are super fast and you get a log of actions that happened so you know wtf is going on even when it goes fast.

Anything like Elven Legacy/fantasy war?

Try Warbanners.

 

[Mikeal]

Lol Codex only jerks to TB because it makes them feel better than unwashed peasents normies.

 

[BING XI LAO]

If you want to engage masses of enemies in a game, you're playing the wrong genre, friend. That's called Real-Time Strategy.

Does this look like an RTS to you?

RPGs should be about unique missions, encounters and events, smaller scaled than RTS and FPS, that may or may not feature several enemies. If you purposely design your TB game to include hours-long fights with 90000 enemies, then you kind of fucked up. D:OS 2 springs to mind again, with really long-winded retarded fights with trash tier mobs in the tens and 20s.

How many PnP sessions feature giant encounters for the party?

The reason TB and P&P don't feature large combats is simply because they can't. It's not a good thing, it's a flaw and a limitation. It's very common for fantasy adventures to involve large armies and fortresses, and it's nice to be able to spam summons too. If P&P could conveniently feature a battle with 100 mundane soldiers on one side and the party on the other, I would happily have that as an option for my players, especially if they decide to go full chaotic neutral murderhobo and anger the entire town guard or some shit.

 

[fantadomat]

Lol Codex only jerks to TB because it makes them feel better than unwashed peasents normies.

You say it as it is something bad. And to be honest most of the unwashed plebeians do play TB games,civ games are really popular,also one of the most boring rpgs DOS2 sell millions.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Who ever said TB is better in all situations? It's better for most situations that arise in an RPG, but if you really need a castle siege where you control each individual troop then RT is your gig, of course.

 

[infidel]

The reason TB and P&P don't feature large combats is simply because they can't. It's not a good thing, it's a flaw and a limitation. It's very common for fantasy adventures to involve large armies and fortresses, and it's nice to be able to spam summons too. If P&P could conveniently feature a battle with 100 mundane soldiers on one side and the party on the other, I would happily have that as an option for my players, especially if they decide to go full chaotic neutral murderhobo and anger the entire town guard or some shit.

Wrong again. Many P&P have mass combat rules in splats including D&D. The solutions are simple: group individual characters into units and simplify combat rolls to get a general gist of how the battle goes ("You've lost 1d10 soldiers from your unit"). Same thing can be done in CRPGs but nobody usually bothers because it's additional work. Off the top of my head I can only remember Birthright (RT) and Suikoden series (JRPG) utilising both small combat and large-scale combat. And using basic combat rules for combating the whole town is just a waste of time unless you're really into your week-long combat sessions. I certainly wouldn't bother.

 

[BING XI LAO]

The reason TB and P&P don't feature large combats is simply because they can't. It's not a good thing, it's a flaw and a limitation. It's very common for fantasy adventures to involve large armies and fortresses, and it's nice to be able to spam summons too. If P&P could conveniently feature a battle with 100 mundane soldiers on one side and the party on the other, I would happily have that as an option for my players, especially if they decide to go full chaotic neutral murderhobo and anger the entire town guard or some shit.

Wrong again. Many P&P have mass combat rules in splats including D&D. The solutions are simple: group individual characters into units

So the grand TB solution for modelling large number of fighters is... to model them as a small number of larger units. Clearly an inferior fudge that's no longer necessary when you're doing things on a computer.

 

[Valky]

RTWP is a bastardization of a game system and decline in every rendition. Where games picking to be either real time or games picking to be turn based are able to master the system they use and become truly good, RTWP is a jack of all trades and as such a master of none. It's average, mediocre, grey colored paste that can not stand out or have a niche due to its insistence by definition to appeal to a wide range of tastes in style.

 

[DeepOcean]

There is no RtwP game that wouldn't be made better being a TB game.

 

[laclongquan]

This thread.

It showcase even more clearly that CODEXERS SUCK at tactic combat game.

To defend turnbased tactic, you can use examples of Fallout Tactics (not 1/2), Silent Storm series, Jagged Alliance2. Not one mention of them. Or about the way tactic is handled in TB style.

To defend RTwP tactic, you can use examples of Icewind Dale 2(or failing that, 1), UFO After series, or hell Baldur's Gate2 with SCS installed. Not one mention of them. Or about the way tactic is handled in RTwP style.

I am not singleing out anyone of you in particular, but YOU ALL ARE SUCK.

 

[Master]

Nah, im sure that Fallout hallway Mutant encounter is all you need for a monocled discussion.

 

[FeelTheRads]

So the grand TB solution for modelling large number of fighters is... to model them as a small number of larger units. Clearly an inferior fudge that's no longer necessary when you're doing things on a computer.

It doesn't have to be "necessary" you imbecilic braindead cretin.
It's a way of doing things which some prefer.

You're just using the same low-IQ argument every other retard uses, that if it "looks more realistic" then it's better.

Yeah, I'm sure HOMM would be a so much better game if you could control 1000 dragons in real time. And it would be the same game too, only better!