Are RPG players antagonistic toward combat types based on misunderstandings?

[PorkyThePaladin]

We often have debates here about which RPG combat systems (real-time, turn-based, real-time-with-pause, action, etc) are good and which are terrible. The 'Codex so called consensus is of course for turn-based, but any time actual codex members engage in a conversation, there will be people arguing for and against each system.

One thing I noticed and was wondering about is whether all of our views on this are often based on very flawed understanding of systems that we don't like. For example, someone arguing against action combat systems in RPGs will often bring up "mindless button mashing". Certainly if you have ever played Bethesda games or Witchers, you will know what they mean. But what's important to realize here, is that those two series (and many other games) are very flawed examples of action RPG combat. I don't think peole who are for action combat sit there and think, oh boy, I wish they could make a game where I just mash buttons. Instead, those people want something closer to Dark Souls combat, or what Kingdom Come: Deliverance is trying to do, an action combat where it's not just about reflexes, but also knowledge of the system, and tactics, or in other words, intelligent gameplay. Similarly, if it's ranged combat, it's easy to imagine intelligent action shooter gameplay with taking cover (non-popamole kind), using decoys and grenades, gadgets and so on.

The same is true of turn-based combat. People who are against it, will often bring up games like Fallout 1 and 2, which although they have somewhat enjoyable combat due to the gore and the character system, let's be honest here, have very simplistic, repetitive combat. Aim for eyes, loot, etc. In the context of such games, people against turn-based combat will bring up the tedium of watching every party member/enemy go through their animations while doing something completely unimportant. But again, people who like turn-based combat, likely envision a much more complex system, with hundreds of possible actions, environment interactivity, and so on, where each action is important and interesting.

So are people often antagonistic toward certain RPG combat systems based on misunderstandings of what those systems can be like if properly developed? Or is it a more deep-seated resentment? What do you guys think?

 

[Excidium II]

This reads like an infinitron post.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

 

[Sigourn]

Definitely agree with you. And with a small experiment, I can even prove it:

- Given the existence of only Dark Souls type of combat, and Final Fantasy type of combat, which one would you rather play?

It's also why I think the whole "turn based rocks" is the most stupid thing I've ever heard. Final Fantasy, and JRPGs in general, suck balls because of their turn-based nature. They don't require any critical thinking as opposed to Final Fantasy Tactics. Done wrong, turn-based combat is as shitty as action combat like Skyrim's. And I would say Skyrim has combat that is actually fun as opposed to Final Fantasy (main series).

 

[Maxie]

my geriatric reflexes prevent me from enjoying aRPGs so I idolise turn-based combat (I also like to take naps in-between commands)

what's so complicated about that

 

[Excidium II]

Definitely agree with you. And with a small experiment, I can even prove it:

- Given the existence of only Dark Souls type of combat, and Final Fantasy type of combat, which one would you rather play?

It's also why I think the whole "turn based rocks" is the most stupid thing I've ever heard. Final Fantasy, and JRPGs in general, suck balls because of their turn-based nature. They don't require any critical thinking as opposed to Final Fantasy Tactics. Done wrong, turn-based combat is as shitty as action combat like Skyrim's. And I would say Skyrim has combat that is actually fun as opposed to Final Fantasy (main series).

 

[Sigourn]

 

[Mustawd]

I disagree with you porky. If anything people:

A.) Are ok with either turn based or RT combat with a preference for one over the other. FF7's remake, for example makes little sense to me as it's not a single player rpg, so RT makes it difficult to get that party-based combat feeling. You end up with a type of single player Gauntlet where you switch characters constantly. Likewise, real time with Arpgs is one of my favorite genres, and I enjoy the rt hack and slash over it's turn-based brother, the rogue-like (like both of course).

B.) Dislike TB being too slow if they're a more twitch-type player or dislike RT because of its twitchiness. It's the reason Indislike most RTS games and why I love turn based tactics or strategy games. The RT aspect in those games just makes me anxious

I'd say most of the discussions fall in those main categories, with a majority agreeing that RTwP is some abomination hybrid of the two when it cones to rpgs, but working well in other genres and games like FTL, 7,62 Calibre, etc., although I'd argue that TB would work fine in some of these games, but whatevah.

 

[an Administrator]

Nigga do you even Wizardry

 

[octavius]

Each type of combat has its place.

Turn Based is the optimal if playing a party. But it the combat is too simplistic (MM3) it could just as well be real time. If it's too slow (Ultima IV) it's just a chore, and the quick abstract combat of Wizardry and other blobbers is much preferable.

Real Time with Pause is an interesting alternative to TB IMO, since it makes for more dynamic battles where characters may have moved when AoE spells land, for example, but bad pathfinding can ruin things.

Real Time is the obvious choice if you control one character in a FPP game, and even more so it the game is not tile based.
But few such games have exciting combat, except Dark Messiah.

 

[Excidium II]

But it the combat is too simplistic (MM3) it could just as well be real time.

No. When it's simple you want it to be turn-based so it can flow as fast as you can press the keys. When it's real-time you have to sit there waiting the downtime between attacks.

 

[Excidium II]

MM3 is actually a very good example for this. If it was real-time it would be terrible.

 

[Lurker King]

RTwP apologists pushing relativist agenda and rationalizations in discussions about game design. Filth.

 

[octavius]

In practice it isn't much difference. The only dangerous enemies in MM3 are Liches and Minotaurs. With the rest you spam the S and A keys most of the time.

 

[Excidium II]

In practice it isn't much difference. The only dangerous enemies in MM3 are Liches and Minotaurs. With the rest you spam the S and A keys most of the time.

Yes but if it was real-time there would need to be timers in place of discrete turns.

 

[CryptRat]

What do you guys think?

I think you're wrong (as usual ).

Turn-based combat relies a lot on character stats which is perfect for an RPG.

Dark Souls is very good because it offers a large choice of builds and weapons but also because it relies a lot on player's skills. Your skill as a player is more important than the level of your character, which means it's a good action game, not really a pure RPG. The player's action skills are in no way meant to replace stats in RPGs. Combat must rely only on stats and player's choices (if you want a very precise example just think about character's dodging score vs player's ability to dodge, one is an RPG thing, the other is not).
That kind of game is legit and can be very good, but they can't replace (as they're different, not as they're worse, I think they're much worse but that's only my opinion) "real" (aka turn-based) RPGs.

 

[Excidium II]

Your skill as a player is more important than the level of your character

Not necessarily, it's more like a scale where you can compensate lack in one with the other.

 

[Luckmann]

[...]

So are people often antagonistic toward certain RPG combat systems based on misunderstandings of what those systems can be like if properly developed? Or is it a more deep-seated resentment? What do you guys think?

Sometimes, yeah, sure, that's probably true. But the fact of the matter is that many of the people with the strongest opinions for or against a system are fully aware of the various implementations of, say, TB vs. RTwP. The assumption that it is largely due to misunderstandings might fly in other places, and if you're decline personified (say, Fluent) you might not have that many real (C)RPG:s under your belt and come away from playing Tides of Numenera thinking that Turn-Based combat suck.

But on the Codex, I have a hard time seeing that. Sure, we have plenty of 'tards here too, and more than a few bona fide autists that would stick to their guns despite concrete evidence to the contrary, but there's also a lot of people that are well-versed in the various systems, and still opt for different systems for different reasons.

Personally, I must say that I enjoy RTwP and think that that can be done really well, and I'm not nearly as dismissive of it as many others, but the more I play, the more I feel like turn-based is generally superior, despite multiple games in recent memory doing it very poorly, such as Wasteland 2 and Tides of Numenera. Funnily enough, I think that one of the big reasons it sucked in Wasteland 2 was due to the lack of a pause button outside of combat, meaning that party coordination and combat initiation was near-impossible. That takes away a lot of that element. And Tides of Numenera was just awful. Just awful.

 

[Stavrophore]

Real time combat? What am i a MMORPG monkey? Especially when devs are retarded and make fast cooldowns paired with weak skills and horrible companion AI.

 

[Carrion]

From cRPG combat I ideally want two things:

1) character stats playing a central role in how combat plays out
2) a high degree of control over what the player character(s) actually do in combat.

I don't really mind how those things are achieved, but quite obviously certain combat types manage to do both of those things more often than others.

With party-based games it's usually the better choice to go with turn-based combat, as real-time systems don't work very well when you're giving elaborate orders to several different units. In certain strategy games RT can work perfectly well, for example if you're more of a commander and mainly giving very simple move/stop/attack orders to a high number of disposable units, but in RPGs it usually just results in a lot of micromanagement and repeatedly pausing the game just to be able to keep up with what's going on, unless you really want to hand the control of your (more or less irreplaceable) characters to some wonky AI. The games where this isn't a problem usually suck for other reasons, like using some form of slow MMO-influenced tank-healer-mage combat where your main concern is managing the cooldowns of just three or four characters. Turn-based combat can suck too, of course, but in general it's the better choice when you're controlling a full party.

As for single-character games, I don't think there's anything wrong in principle about having real-time combat, but I feel that in such systems character stats almost always have a smaller importance than they should. The AI is often really vulnerable against kiting and other forms of cheese, and usually there are lots of critical elements that aren't affected by your character's stats at all — for example, it should be hugely important how fast or agile your character is, but more often than not you can just run rings around your enemies because the skill system only covers basic stuff like accuracy, damage and hit points, or the influence of your stats is so small that you can offset it by taking advantage of the AI's flaws. Such systems should be built from the ground up around RPG mechanics, yet it almost always feels like you're playing typical action game combat with some light RPG stuff bolted onto it.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

I have learned from a young age to enjoy any type of RPG, whether it's turn-based, real-time, JRPG, CRPG, MMORPG or whatever you want to call it. It pays to just be open to different types of games and experiences because they can end up being very enjoyable and you would have never discovered that if you didn't give it a chance. You can also learn a lot from any experience, so playing a real-time JRPG or adventure RPG or something could show you something you may have otherwise not seen.

If they're RPG they're okay with me.

 

[mondblut]

For example, someone arguing against action combat systems in RPGs will often bring up "mindless button mashing".

Button mashing does not belong to RPGs, whether mindless or "mindful".

If anything, TES combat is superior because it is done with after a few aimless clicks and does not require hopping around the keyboard like a spastic monkey on meth playing tekken.

 

[almondblight]

No. When it's simple you want it to be turn-based so it can flow as fast as you can press the keys. When it's real-time you have to sit there waiting the downtime between attacks.

Eh. It depends. Waiting for 40 orcs to miss you before you could move again was pretty tedious in PoR.

 

[mondblut]

- Given the existence of only Dark Souls type of combat, and Final Fantasy type of combat, which one would you rather play?

Strategy games, of course. Why play shit?

 

[CryptRat]

I have learned from a young age to enjoy any type of RPG, whether it's turn-based, real-time, JRPG, CRPG, MMORPG or whatever you want to call it. It pays to just be open to different types of games and experiences because they can end up being very enjoyable and you would have never discovered that if you didn't give it a chance. You can also learn a lot from any experience, so playing a real-time JRPG or adventure RPG or something could show you something you may have otherwise not seen.

If they're RPG they're okay with me.

But there's no reason for every game out there to be an RPG. Doom and Megaman are good as they are. RPG elements make turn-based party-based RPGs shine, whereas in action games they can sometimes be irrelevant or even make the games worse.