Baldur's Gate RTwP vs TB in Baldur's Gate 3 - Discuss!

[Goldschmidt]

Any decent rpg-gamer plays their rtwp-games with companion A.I. disabled. And yes, it does take more skill than turn-based.

 

[Fairfax]

However, AFAIK no digital game has implemented PB combat with individual initiative in resolution and tactical/free movement with a map.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_Squad_Nemesis
I think this might fit the criteria

That one has simultaneous resolution:

 

[Lacrymas]

Ah, do you put your mages in front of your fighters when you play RTwP? Do you keep your entire party bunched up even if you suppose the enemy might have a mage with fireball? Do you run everyone straight into a room without scouting ahead and then find yourself in a clusterfuck of kobolds and flaming arrows?

You still haven’t responded to the fact that, in TB, actions progress in discrete steps and so the information with which you make decisions is fundamentally different than in RTwP.

About the first questions - pretty much, yeah. Not intentionally, but it wouldn't matter either way because of the aforementioned ease of repositioning. The only exception being when you are extremely low level and a stray arrow can kill your mage. It's not so much that positioning doesn't matter, but that the ease of repositioning is what makes it a non-issue.

RTwP also progresses in discrete steps, just faster, due to the 6 second turns. I don't really know what you mean here tbh, it sounds very abstract. What different information that isn't present in TB?

And this discussion doesn't really revolve around trying to somehow justify the existence of RTwP by any means necessary, no matter how abstract and minute we get, but that RTwP in general is problematic in of itself and doesn't make much sense in terms of design. There are ways to get the very, very few advantages RTwP has and transpose them to a better system.

 

[Saerain]

My pedantry is so annoyed because I've never seen a real-time game without pause. Seems like we're talking "real-time with queue".

 

[DraQ]

And yes, it does take more skill than turn-based.

So does controlling the game with your anus rather than with your hand - so fucking what?

Harder != better.
Bad controls do not make for a better game.
RTWP in party-based RPG, especially on top of TB mechanics is just a case of bad controls enshrined as a "system".

Another alternative is that you set up your active abilities(or part of them) for a fight which then are locked in. This gives you strategic maneuverability while maintaining tactical control. This is kind of like the Vancian system with spells.

Except that's just arbitrary gamey shit if not backed up by some solid reason (which was flaky even in Vancian) and also reduces depth.

Furthermore, another variation of this solution could be to do the opposite to what Sawyer did for Deadfire and focus much more on "pre-buffing". You have tons of abilities but most of the work of using them is setting them up for the fight rather than using them in the fight, with the actual fight playing more like an RTS, albeit still more complex.

Focus on prebuffing is likely to devolve the game into quickload-and-prebuff shitfest. It doesn't have to - it worked well in first Witcher, but only because you had your opportunities to research what laid ahead, it can at least be expected to disallow some storytelling elements - ambush anyone?

Yeah that's a serious issue.

For acceptable RTwP rather than Continuous Pause, you need to not have to pause every milisecond, it can't be the optimal strategy. The system should be designed so that you'd want to pause a couple of times a fight at most, for big decisions or to setup a coordinated course of action for the whole party, for example drawing fire with some guys while the rogue sneaks behind for the killing blow. But that doesn't work for D&D, or most RPGs for that matter, since they have too many abilities/effects to choose from and activate manually. The problem is compounded when you play a full party instead of a single character.

That because RTWP simply does not make any sense for an RPG. In an RTS you have mechanically shallow, expendable units. Tactical depth comes from managing huge mass of them and precision is not needed because death of a few is nonissue.
In an RPG you have a handful units with a lot of mechanical depth each (multiple complex menus!) that need to be managed precisely and death of which imparts severe consequences.

If one were to design a system for RTwP, it would have to have a limited amount of activable effects/abilities.

Except that simply gives up depth for... what exactly?

If you want party based but hate TB for some unfathomable reason the workable solutions are as follows:

• kill yourself
• Real Time with Slo-Mo: Like RTWP but instead of hammering pause every half second or so you get to adjust game speed with something handy (like mouse wheel or hotkeys). If the battle becomes clusterfuck you can slow the time enough to give the orders without breaking the flow. Probably needs normal and panic hotkeys. No active pause.

If you do like TB, but hate how unresponsive it can be there is also solution:

• Interrupt Based: TB (or PB), but when something happens to a character, the controlling faction is given limited control to mitigate (enemy attacks- you get control and decide whether to parry, block, dodge or get adjacent character to interpose). Can help make AoO and overwatch less dependent on artificial bolted-on rules and derpy computer logic.

If you feel adventurous you can implement interrupt based on top of essentially continuous mechanics as it obviates the need of TB kludges like special AoO rules while still allowing TB controls.

 

[Kaivokz]

RTwP also progresses in discrete steps, just faster, due to the 6 second turns. I don't really know what you mean here tbh, it sounds very abstract. What different information that isn't present in TB?

Imagine you are Princeps Lacrymas and you want to conduct an experiment with some gladiatorial bouts.

As a control group you have two teams of five gladiators fight to the death.

As condition 1, you take the same basic premise, but give each gladiator a number and order them to move and stop in sequential order every time they hear a horn blare (say every 3 seconds). Save maybe that the gladiators can always take defensive actions.

As condition 2, you give the teams leaders and trumpeters. They are permitted to order the trumpeter whenever they want to signal that everyone must stop. The leader can then give orders to each gladiator on their team and trumpet again to signal the gladiators to resume.

What you will observe in each of these cases is a different battle, not just in how it flows, but in how the gladiators (or the leaders) make decisions. The example is not perfect, of course, but you should be able to imagine how the control and condition 1 will vary drastically in how they play out. Specifically because, as I said, after the first gladiator moves, every other gladiator in that “round” can use his move to inform their future moves in that “round.”

The control and condition 2 will be dissimilar, as well, because 2 more resembles a game of chess with two intellects guiding the pieces. However, condition 2 will more resemble the control than condition 1 will, because the tactical environments between pauses are much more similar than to condition 1, where the flow of information is drastically different.

In other words, TB gives you more information about individual units and it delivers it in asynchronous parcels. If you were to try to recreate a real battle with each participant engaging in asynchronous intervals of 6 seconds, it would be near impossible. This is not to say TB cannot make a fun game, but that the tactical landscape is inherently different. Again, I’m not arguing from simulationism, I only use the comparison to highlight how the tactical decisions you make are different.

My pedantry is so annoyed because I've never seen a real-time game without pause. Seems like we're talking "real-time with queue".

Unless you mean an options menu, there are many games even among RPGs. Might & Magic and other RT blobbers, for example.

 

[Tigranes]

"The sound / animation bit is an example, and you Tigranes would see it if you weren't trying your best to turn the argument into a strawman."

Ismaul honestly, I'm not even trying - ultimately, I prefer TB, so it's not like my balls are trembling with rage at the issue. But wouldn't you say that it sounds faintly ridiculous to claim "it should be PwRT not RTwP"? Either way, pausing is integral to the system. I'm not saying you can't criticise how the system works while paused - I'm saying the insinuation that the system is not meant to have you pause often is weird and counterintuitive.

Same with Lacrymas claiming that RTwP is "inhuman" because it has 6 characters moving at different timeflows. I think that's a legit claim for why someone prefers TB, but it's also a bit melodramatic, isn't it? I never had too much trouble figuring out turns in BG2, though I expect I would if I refused to pause often. It's harder in POE1/2 because they did a poorer job of feedback, but the one thing they did right was the circular turn counter above each character.

Now, I can appreciate that the clusterfucky nature of RTwP will bother some players more than myself, so I can imagine that it is such an offensive sight that you think, why does it even exist? Why can't we just have TB? - even if it never bothers me enough to really feel exactly the same way.

 

[Lacrymas]

It's not 6 characters "moving at different timeflows", it's controlling 6 characters with vastly different skill sets who *act* at different times, while also keeping an eye on however many enemies with their own skill sets happen to be on screen. It's not melodramatic, it's just what it is - RTwP feels like it was designed by aliens, PoE exacerbated that issue to a ridiculous degree. It doesn't matter that we can technically control it, that doesn't mean it's elegant, well conceived or that there aren't way better alternatives.

Kaivokz the difference is that the ones with the 3 second turns would actually be able to do anything because they have a set plan and set parameters. You know, like a game. The other one will be a gigantic clusterfuck where the horn won't stop blaring. You have to take into consideration the perspective of the leaders and their ability to control their units, not the gladiators or the overall battle. The actual actions they do are exactly the same in both cases. I'd imagine this battle won't go much differently in terms of what orders are given because the goal is the same, they'll just be able to be fine tuned more on the TB mode. Can you imagine chess in real time? Ugh.

Again, this is way too abstract/minute for how RTwP goes in practice. The crux of the matter is that TB is more refined, way more comfortable to control and the playable characters don't have a cap on how many skills they can have or what they can do. PoE is way, waaaay too busy, while I'd say that is the logical extreme of RTwP + an attempt at a system where each character has their own PnP-like progression (a stupid one, but that's neither here nor there). You'd have to start cutting abilities to make most classes like they were in the IE games, very good auto-attackers.

What RTwP would excel at is build creation in which you have minimal control over the units, you just set their builds and look at them go at it to test their efficacy. Or maybe have way less characters to control, like 3 or less.

 

[ItsChon]

The "cluster-fuck" nature of RTwP also adds some charm, in that when you manage to overcome the clusterfuck and impose your own set of tactics and strategy to beat the odds, it feels really good.

 

[d1nolore]

BG & BG2 were quite popular. Not sure it's a good idea to mess with the formula. If Rtwp is so bad then why did you all play the series? Don't you like playing different styles of games? Or would you rather every RPG just be a carbon copy of eachother?

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

BG & BG2 were quite popular. Not sure it's a good idea to mess with the formula. If Rtwp is so bad then why did you all play the series? Don't you like playing different styles of games? Or would you rather every RPG just be a carbon copy of eachother?

Word. We should enjoy different types of RPGs and systems. It seems sometimes like people here do want the same thing over and over, but then they'd complain about that too. You can't win on the Codex.

 

[biggestboss]

BG & BG2 were quite popular. Not sure it's a good idea to mess with the formula. If Rtwp is so bad then why did you all play the series? Don't you like playing different styles of games? Or would you rather every RPG just be a carbon copy of eachother?

For me personally, I've only enjoyed the actual Infinity Engine games as far as RTWP goes. Every incarnation of the system after that has always played less and less like an RTS and more like a chore with all the different mechanics like attacks of opportunity/disengagement/character turning speed/numerous activated abilities.

 

[sser]

Turn-based: better game.

Real-time: better product.

 

[Ismaul]

If one were to design a system for RTwP, it would have to have a limited amount of activable effects/abilities.

Except that simply gives up depth for... what exactly?

A different type of depth made for RT. Such as but not limited to, positioning, active dodging, kiting... Also you can have more depth put into combat planning, techning/preparing the active abilities you're going to use in the fight, putting down traps, perparing persistent buffs. In RTS terms, micro and macro. You might say that you can do those in RTwP already, but it's really not optimal and designed for things like that. This type of "depth" is different and maybe not your cup of tea, but it's suited for RT with or without occasional pause.

 

[Ismaul]

wouldn't you say that it sounds faintly ridiculous to claim "it should be PwRT not RTwP"? Either way, pausing is integral to the system. I'm not saying you can't criticise how the system works while paused - I'm saying the insinuation that the system is not meant to have you pause often is weird and counterintuitive.

No, I'm highlighting the fact that pausing is a tacked-on mechanic to what is fundamentally a RT system, and suggesting in response that if paused mode is what you'll spend most of your combat time in, maybe it should be designed with paused mode at the core instead of RT. Obviously the designers of RTwP mean for you to pause regularly and maybe often -- or not since they implement automation, slomo time, etc. -- but the game design itself isn't tailor-made for spending most of your combat time out of RT.

Same with Lacrymas claiming that RTwP is "inhuman" because it has 6 characters moving at different timeflows. I think that's a legit claim for why someone prefers TB, but it's also a bit melodramatic, isn't it?

What he means is that the number of abilities and tactical decisions to be made to play optimally are too great to be played in RT with a reasonable amount of pausing. So we have auto-pausing, and auto-attacks, and auto-tactical-choices (AI) to take care of that. The system is so shoddy that the designers keep feeling like they have to figure out additional ways to make the game play itself for it to be manageable. Doesn't that raise any alarms for you? That every possible improvement to the RTwP system is one that automates part of the gameplay? This is exactly what Lacrymas is saying: the fact that we need such amount of automation to play the game is what makes it "inhuman". Humans need help to play it, this is by design, the designers know it and spend a lot of dev time on it. Instead, why not design a system tailored for non-automated and non-autistic-pauser play?

Let's go deeper. With such RTwP design and automation, the player is left with a choice: either give in to automation and stop caring about precise tactics -- and then what the fuck is the point of this complex character system with many abilities? -- or either assume control of everything but be forced to go against the RT flow of the game and be on paused mode most of the time. But pausing in RTwP doesn't happen in a smooth manner like in TB, you end up (auto-)pausing and unpausing every fraction of a second because not all abilities can be assigned at the same time, you have to wait until a character has finished his action and they all do at different times. Sure, you can respond that we should queue actions, but notwithstanding how shitty this is implemented in PoE (nowhere to see the queue for one), doesn't that defeat the purpose of having a RTwP system rather than TB? One of RT's major advantages is that you're able to react to what is happening as things happen, instead of having to wait for your turn after everything has been resolved. Queueing instead of excessive pausing would negate RT's major difference with TB, which is how you make tactical decisions given what information you have access to at a time, like Kaivokz keeps saying. Why have RTwP then?

So, to recap:

• Give in to automation: then why have a complex tactical system in the first place?
• Pause all the time: then why not have pause as the default instead of extremely jerky gameplay?
• Queue instead of pausing a lot: then aren't you losing the main tactical advantage of RT over TB, which is being able to react to what's happening?

Now, I can appreciate that the clusterfucky nature of RTwP will bother some players more than myself, so I can imagine that it is such an offensive sight that you think, why does it even exist? Why can't we just have TB? - even if it never bothers me enough to really feel exactly the same way.

The argument is about good design, not simply about being bothered. I don't dispute that one can tolerate and make do with RTwP, I do so myself when the rest of the game is good and I even go all out on tactics and pausing, but that doesn't change the fact that RTwP as applied to complex cRPGs is a badly designed system, a tentative to hack in a character system made for TB into RT.

 

[Orma]

Barabus

 

[Barabus]

Turn based is fir retards

 

[DraQ]

A different type of depth made for RT. Such as but not limited to, positioning, active dodging, kiting... Also you can have more depth put into combat planning, techning/preparing the active abilities you're going to use in the fight, putting down traps, perparing persistent buffs. In RTS terms, micro and macro. You might say that you can do those in RTwP already, but it's really not optimal and designed for things like that. This type of "depth" is different and maybe not your cup of tea, but it's suited for RT with or without occasional pause.

This kind of depth, along with RT is best suited for controlling single protagonist, preferably in direct, action-y mode.

Attempt to do that with party and RTWP is doomed to be clusterfuck.

The only way RT with party and significant depth could possibly work is by having adjustable slo-mo to adjust pace of the game to your input speed - possibly with optional automation adjusting it to the pace of action.
But even then you'd probably want to avoid excessive micro like active dodging. Active dodging is for when you are directly controlling one character only.

 

[Molina]

I have a real question about all this. While reading reddit and the different forums, I realize that the turn-based is really popular. And I'm reading this from people who aren't really into RPGs. Where does this sudden popularity come from ?

 

[Farewell into the night]

I like both.

 

[NJClaw]

I have a real question about all this. While reading reddit and the different forums, I realize that the turn-based is really popular. And I'm reading this from people who aren't really into RPGs. Where does this sudden popularity come from ?

I think from the fact that people actually want to have fun and fighting well made encounters while understanding what's going on is inherently more fun than clicking on an enemy when the one you clicked on before is dead.

Or maybe we screamed loud enough to convince the internet.

 

[Riddler]

I have a real question about all this. While reading reddit and the different forums, I realize that the turn-based is really popular. And I'm reading this from people who aren't really into RPGs. Where does this sudden popularity come from ?

Nu-XCOM was the beginning of modern mainstream popularity of turn-based tactics I believe.

I believe another factor is that turn-based games are easier to control which makes them suitable for more platforms than RtwP. You can easily play a turn-based game on a console or a tablet but not a RtwP game. Furthermore, RTSes have waned in popularity and the overlap between RtwP and RTS probably accounted for some of the popularity of RtwP.

 

[Morality Games]

I have a real question about all this. While reading reddit and the different forums, I realize that the turn-based is really popular. And I'm reading this from people who aren't really into RPGs. Where does this sudden popularity come from ?

The X-Com reboot series sold millions of copies across all platforms and popularized the design sensibilities of turn-based; most gamers haven't played a RtWP game.

 

[Kalin]

Shit game gon suck

 

[Lyric Suite]

This entire argument is pointless.

This is not about RTwP vs TB, it's about Baldur's Gate specifically and what people wanted from a sequel to that game. If they had just announced they were going to make a D&D spin off of D:OS we wouldn't be bitching about this kind of stuff.