Real Time with Paws - what's wrong?

[Lumpy]

I've never been a fan of combat of any kind, so I never really cared about the long arguments in favour of TB, RT, or RTwP. Playing NWN2, however, made me curious, what is wrong with RTwP?
How is a RTwP system different from a "simultaneous turn based" one, except for the fact that you have to pause the game yourself? Furthermore, how is it worse than a normal TB system, since as far as I can tell, the former two prevent exploits the latter allows - specifically, making decisions in your turn based on what happened in the opponent's turn, even though they are both supposedly simultaneous. Apart from that, I can't see where the fuss is - NWN2 combat seems more or less an accurate representation of turn based.
Please enlighten me, or at least point me to an older thread containing this discussion, as Project: Monkey returned nothing.

 

[dolio]

If I may give an example from Icewind Dale 2...

I came to a point in the game where I had to fight a troll with a relatively low level party. However, I had been equipped for the occasion: I had several bottles of flaming oil or something like that. So, I gave a couple to each person in my party so they could gang up on the troll.

End result? I had to reload the game probably 6 times before I was successful, because flaming oil is a slow projectile, and it took me that many tries to hit the troll with enough oil to put it out of comission, while properly leading the troll's movement, and guessing when exactly my characters would throw the oil. In short, it was no fun at all.

Aurora and Infinity engine games are the same way, although NWN2 at least has an indicator of the area of effect of various spells (and doesn't have any projectiles as slow as those bottles of oil, off the top of my head).

You may consider it an "exploit" that a unit later in the initiative order can respond to actions earlier in the same round, but frankly, that doesn't bother me at all. It's just the nature of turn-based combat; nobody complains that chess, which is supposed to be based on two armies fighting, has pieces move in turn. It's just an abstraction of real combat that allows the players to focus on the tactics and strategy, rather than having to worry about orchestrating things to happen at the same, real time.

In short, real time combat may look more realistic while playing out, but overall, it makes it rather more difficult (for me) to carefully plan out and execute maneuvers, and forces you to deal with issues like pathfinding and leading shots that make combat no more (and possibly less) enjoyable. And that's the point; I don't care which is more closely representative of real combat; I care which is more fun.

 

[Sovy Kurosei]

Playing NWN2, however, made me curious, what is wrong with RTwP?

The pause feature is usually a crutch to prop up poorly implemented real time combat.

 

[Lumpy]

Bullshit. RTwP seeks to allow the large diversity of actions that TB allows, which would be impossible in unpausable real-time. How would a "well implemented" real time system handle casting one of dozens of spells and abilities within 6 seconds?

 

[Sovy Kurosei]

RTwP seeks to allow the large diversity of actions that TB allows, which would be impossible in unpausable real-time.

Then why even have the game be in real time in the first place?

How would a "well implemented" real time system handle casting one of dozens of spells and abilities within 6 seconds?

Hotbars.

 

[bezimek]

Hotbars.

WoW ... and NWN 1/2 :wink:

 

[Elwro]

Pause is what makes a RT computer combat system built on top of a TB rule system work. Think BG. The "pause after each round" command gives you proper control of who casts a spell when etc. Without this option combat is more random just because you know less about what's happening.

 

[Lumpy]

RTwP seeks to allow the large diversity of actions that TB allows, which would be impossible in unpausable real-time.

Then why even have the game be in real time in the first place?

Simple. Because it's more fast-paced and less tedious.

 

[Elwro]

In a well-designed game TB combat is nowhere near tedious. RT in a badly designed game can be tedious as hell. I don't think the two modes have their inherent levels of tediousness.

 

[galsiah]

Please enlighten me, or at least point me to an older thread containing this discussion, as Project: Monkey returned nothing.

Links.

I think the main trouble with RTwP vs simultaneous resolution phase-based is that the option to pause at any time means that you're catering for a wide variety of pausing frequencies with one system - and you'll naturally tend to do a poor job. Simultaneous resolution PB gives the designer the option to control the pace, and therefore to focus everything on making the action+interaction right for that pace.

RTwP also incentivizes almost constant pausing - which probably isn't too much fun for the player. The "You don't have to pause all the time if you don't want to!!11!" line only really works if you're assuming either that combat doesn't matter too much, and/or that the player doesn't particularly care about his party/squad - a situation you don't want. If you've designed the rest of the game well, combat should have great significance, and players should care greatly about the fate of their squad/party.
The more successfully you achieve this, the more it makes sense for the player to pause every 0.05 seconds - and have little fun as a result. You can support a more laid-back, fun-as-primary-focus attitude to combat, only by having the player not care about the results - i.e. by making it sucky filler.

However much an individual player does pause, he'll always be pulled in one direction by pragmatism, and the other by the urge to have some degree of fun. This isn't a desirable conflict - ideally you'd want your "player-being-entertained" sweetspot and your "player-doing-his-best" sweetspot to coincide.
You might achieve this by having some gameplay penalty for each pause - but that probably eliminates most of the benefits of RTwP anyway.

So long as the time-per-turn and (inter)action density is judged well for simultaneous resolution PB, it can at least have pragmatism and entertainment pulling in the same direction. Of course you need a load of fiddly interrupts, contingencies and similar to have it work well.

 

[EvoG]

I concur...it goes both ways. ANYTHING is tedious if it doesn't engage you.

An action-y example(speaking only for myself):

• The new Rachet and Clank on the PS3...tedious. Weapons offer modest 'oomph', the levels are mundane and the tactics are non-existent. Pick the heaviest hitting weapon and go down from there as you expend massive amounts of ammo.
  
• CoD4...completely thrilling...completely linear and controller chucking. The gun fights are loud and awesome, but you're not asked to think much other than pointing and shooting and then being lead to the next fire fight.
  
• Crysis...completely thrilling...spatially immersive like nothing else. Open world play engages my tactical play and gives me another expanded metric to determine my progress and method of tackling the otherwise same-y gameplay.

All three games are more or less the same thing...you have guns and you shoot shit.


Now look at Silent Storm compared to Fallout or jRPG's. All three are more or less the same thing ideally, but execute in three different ways.

• I'm not mentally engaged in non-tactical jRPG TB, so I can't play them no matter the quality. Tactical jRPG's fare better, but still feel restrictive. Not a fan of rubbing down the health of the enemy while slamming back health/mana potions ad nauseum.
• Fallout is perfectly fine but a tad simplistic on the tactical side (movement/positioning)...what makes it REALLY enjoyable is the presentation of the gun play. You also get a greater degree of granularity to do more each turn which helps offset the lack of again, tactical positioning (range aside).
• Silent Storm is immediately engaging due the available options in increased AP granularity...I dont want to simply click on a baddie to shoot him, I want to flank, or if unseen, spend a fully turn or so aiming for that killer shot...blow my way through a wall or draw fire with a quicker soldier. So while indeed a far slower game, each turn can be 'explosive' and be intensely gratifying. I'm rewarded for thoughtful play and that in turn makes me want to play thoughtfully...I'm mentally engaged and challenged beyond the attrition.

I didn't include ToEE as I'm attempting to go through it now in earnest after a lackluster first go when it came out. Reading tactical sites though tells me this is perhaps the most robust TB system of the three above, though I feel S2 ultimately will hold that top spot for the right amount of tactical play and engaging presentation.


Cheers

 

[Volourn]

Real time w/pause is awesome. Period.

 

[Deacdo]

RT w/ pause has potential as long as guns aren't involved. That said, no developer is likely to put the time/money into making it really interesting, so TBed combat FTW.

 

[fastpunk]

RTwP is a damned good system for tactical combat imho. Sure, TB is still a better choice in this matter, it feels less chaotic and fractured, but on the other hand RTwP allows you to play more in the now. You don't need to wait for your turn, I want to move my character from spot x to spot y now and I do it now. On the downside, action feels fractured specially in harder confrontations when you need to pause every 5-10 seconds. Both systems have ups and downs but I love both, and RTwP always worked for me.

 

[The_Pope]

I like the Total War style of RTWP. It's realtime, but it has pause as a crutch for those without leet clicking skillz.

 

[Norfleet]

"Real Time With Pause" is basically a illusion. Most implementations of single-player real-time have some degree of pausibility, and it's pretty trivial to add. The TRUE issue is more basic: Real time vs. Turn-based. Period.

With that in mind, there is GOOD real-time and BAD real-time, just as there is GOOD turn-based and....not-so-good turn-based (Even bad turn-based doesn't quite sink to the lows of bad real-time). Total War, for instance, is fundamentally an example of "good" real-time combat. The action is fluid, units seem responsive to the orders you give them and carry them out in a visibly effective manner. KOTOR and NWN, on the other hand, are examples of BAD real-time: They are really turn-based games, but the superimposed real-time makes it unclear when you are allowed to make a decision, and even less clear when that decision will acted upon or what effect it will have. Case and point: Trying to cast a spell at something. In a true real-time game, you would know exactly what the casting time of the spell generally is, and thus be able to plan accordingly using real-time fighting skills. In NWN and KOTOR, however, the superimposed nature of the real-time means that instead, your character will stand there uselessly like a post until the arbitrarily determined end of this "turn", doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, and only when the next "turn" has started (which is never entirely clear WHEN that is), will he finally begin casting. There is no particularly logical reason why he couldn't have started casting it when you told him to. Basically, the game is BAD real-time. It provides all of the drawbacks of both real-time and turn-based: It is disordered and chaotic while simultaneously still fractured and disjointed, providing neither the precision of control given by turn-based play nor the fluidity and responsiveness of real-time play, capturing the worst of both worlds. Combat in those games is traditionally a "please let this end quickly so we can get back to the plot" affair.

 

[Zomg]

Shit points of RTw/P:

1) Pathing is always utter micromanaging shit.
2) Choke point management is typically utter shit.
3) Splitting units into smaller teams in different locations is always utter uncontrollable shit.
4) Balance is always utter shit, re: galsiah
5) Implementation is always utter shit - the sole function of RTw/P in the eyes of developers is to obscure the awfulness of their endless garbage combat.

It has no redeeming features besides being a bland half-measure between decent RT and decent TB that allows developers to sell to two tastes at once.

This is somewhat unfair because I'm ultimately comparing stuff like X-Com to RTw/P RPGs in my head, and it's not as if actual RPG TB combat has done so much better.

 

[Keldorn]

Real time w/pause is awesome. Period.

QFT.


It is the transcendent, all-encompassing SUPER-middle.

It represents a fusion of the potentially undesirable, polarized extremes.




It is the 3rd way system of divine enlightenment, and if you happen to disagree, then that is your right..... but if you happen to attempt a calculated refutation of RTwP, then you are *wrong*.

 

[Ahzaruuk]

I found the Combat in FFXII to be very enjoyable. Although I'm quite certain that my untrained self would not know good combat if it slapped me in the face.

 

[El Dee]

I found the Combat in FFXII to be very enjoyable. Although I'm quite certain that my untrained self would not know good combat if it slapped me in the face.

Agreed. I thought FFXII implemented RTWP very well.

 

[Balor]

Look at Brigade E5 or recent 7.62.
It might be lacking in certain areas like leet graphix or be a bit buggy around the edges, but it's RTwP done RIGHT.
Of course, you don't HAVE to have RTwP in your game. However, if your goal is realistic tactical combat, TB just don't fit.
And some people find realistic tactical combat FUN, and are quite willing to put up with RTwP due to benefits it provides when it comes to realism... it's not about 'immershun' or 'fast paced-akshun'. (Unfortunately, you must be hard pressed to find latter in any installment of Apeiron's games. Well, you can TRY to have fast paced-combat... emphasis on fast. You'll be wiped out in seconds.).

Lookup any Brigade E5 thread - eventually you'll find my post in any of them where I described all hows and whys in detail .
If you don't care about realism in any way, but still want to have complex combat system - then I agree that TB is better.

 

[Severian Silk]

I like the Total War style of RTWP. It's realtime, but it has pause as a crutch for those without leet clicking skillz.

I think RTWP is more forgiving in slower-paced games. Homeworld is OK. SimCity is RTwP and I never complained. The strategic portions of JA2 and X-COM were similarly un-troubling. Freedom Force, on the other hand, was a 'meh' game for me (however, I'm not sure how much this was due to the setting/script; the game's much-lauded charm wasn't really apparent to me).

 

[Norfleet]

I continue to assert that the entire "with pause" is purely an illusion. The game is either "real time" or it is not. The "pause" aspect just signifies its game-like nature. MOST real-time games have pause, but their underlying mechanics still remain real-time. The only question is whether it is "true" real-time where the individual "turns" fall below the concious threshold, or whether it is some unholy hybrid, as seen in games like NWN. True "real time" games don't have "initiative" rolls! The entire POINT of real-time games is to ELIMINATE the concept of "initiative rolls": In real time, your initiative is NOW, when you choose to act! You TAKE initiative, you do not roll it.

 

[Section8]

This is always going to be pissing into the wind, but what is the designer setting out to do - make a game where time pressure is constant, and a major factor in the challenge the game provides (such as RTS, where minimising latency is everything) -or- make a game where some of the gameplay is far beyond what can be effectively managed in real-time and "fixes" that by completely eliminating all time pressure?

The fact of the matter remains that ultimately, these sort of factors weren't considered in (under)designing the early RTwP systems. In fact, the key factor was pretty simple - multiplayer was the "next big thing" as internet play became more and more prevalent, so the solution seemed simple - take the existing turn-based systems and kludge them into real time form so there's no need to take turns in multiplayer. Not bad in theory, and the system does work pretty well if you have multiple players controlling a single character each.

And you can see some reasonable evolutions of this general model in most MMOGs since Everquest - you get rid of the ultimately broken concept of the gameworld tracking a six second "turn" and simply time all actions. It makes connection latency a non-issue, and keeps everything simple enough to let the servers track vast numbers of players, and keeps client packets pretty small. It's all very sound in theory and practice.

However, you can't just shoehorn the very same system into a single player game with control of multiple characters and then add a pause feature to band aid fix it. Everything about the "classic" Baldur's Gate system reeks of patchy fixes to poor design - and that wouldn't necessarily be unforgivable as an early attempt - but the fact that so many games have either used the same system or emulated it complete with all of its shortcomings pushes it over the edge.

There's nothing inherently wrong with the concept, but the typical implementation leaves little to be desired - see Zomg's post.

 

[Norfleet]

And you can see some reasonable evolutions of this general model in most MMOGs since Everquest - you get rid of the ultimately broken concept of the gameworld tracking a six second "turn" and simply time all actions. It makes connection latency a non-issue, and keeps everything simple enough to let the servers track vast numbers of players, and keeps client packets pretty small. It's all very sound in theory and practice.

However, you can't just shoehorn the very same system into a single player game with control of multiple characters and then add a pause feature to band aid fix it. Everything about the "classic" Baldur's Gate system reeks of patchy fixes to poor design - and that wouldn't necessarily be unforgivable as an early attempt - but the fact that so many games have either used the same system or emulated it complete with all of its shortcomings pushes it over the edge.

Actually, that's exactly the RIGHT way to do it. The CORRECT method of producing a real-time game *IS* to time all actions and create a true asynchronous real-time game. The PROBLEM is that they *ARE* continuing to kludge real-time onto a 6-second fixed "turn", with the result that if you issue a "real time" order one second into the "turn", your character will either continue to perform the wrong actions, or simply do nothing and refuse to perform the ordered action for a good 5 seconds. If action itself takes the span of 6 seconds, that means you're looking at 5 seconds of apparently incomprehensible refusal to follow orders, and if you decide that, apparently, the character did not receive your command due to various interface-related issues, and reissue the order, you're liable to again block the order if you issue it in, say, the first second of the next turn. This is exactly what is being done WRONG. Compare that to a purely "action" centric real-time implementation like Diablo, and you will see this DOES NOT HAPPEN. Say what you will about how it's not an RPG, etc., but your character most certainly is responsive to your orders and it's more or less an example of realtime gameplay done "right".

Throwing in the issue of "pause" just confuses the issue. The pausing or lack thereof is irrelevant to the nature of the real-time implementation. All single player games expect to be able to be paused. Players get annoyed when their choices become "piss your pants" vs. "lose your entire party while you go to the bathroom". Multiplayer games, on the other hand, may or may not include a time-out functionality, but as the number of players grows larger, typically do not, for obvious reasons. Pausing is purely an accomodation to single-player gameplay, and has nothing to do with real-time vs. turn-based. If there were multiple players, the pausing would be unnecessary and undesirable.

The issue is not "Real Time With Pause" vs. "Turn-Based". It is simply "Real Time" vs. "Turn-Based", with many games employing some shitty implementation of one or the other, often the wrong one, which clouds the issue. Personally, I consider both real-time games AND turn-based games to be good, and I like both, but shitty implementations of EITHER are simply *BAD*. However, it is far easier to make a shitty implementation of real-time than it is to make a shitty implementation of turn-based, because real-time games just have so many more things that can be done WRONG. The fact that real time is popular combined with the fact that there are just so many more pitfalls involved in real-time game design creates the impression that real-time games suck, because we are then innundated with the shit that pours forth from the developers' distended anuses like the Goatse Man with explosive diarrhea.