Are RTWP doomed to be less popular then turnbased

[onemananadhisdroid]

RTWP is a heretical bastardization of RTS and TB-RPG. Hence it's entire existence should be purified at the earliest opportunity.

Kingmaker is a good example. If Owlcat had made the game TB they could have copied the Paizo rules almost 1:1 and also copied most of the fights straight from the AP without any need for rebalancing or adding trash mobs everywhere.

Ironically, they also suffer by including too much of the inherently turn-based abstract tabletop. Lots of their Combat is enjoyable, but in particular on higher Levels and complexity, it just becomes a bit of a mess when each character simultaneously does multiple attack throws per round (6 seconds), uses one of his active abilities, does saving throws, buffs/debuffs, does percentage checks on "miss chances", moves in and out of threat ranges, triggers condition for attacks of opportunity, resolves attacks of opportunity, triggers/defends Combat maneuvers, flanks opponents, triggers conditions for Sneak attacks -- and that's just your own Party.

At ist most complex it's totally the worst of both Worlds, as it strips the enjoyment out of Combat to be had by being able to roughly estimate what actions specifically actually did truly turn the tides of battle into anybody's favor (as in the table-top, you would). It's an odd clash of Abstract table-top mechanics all piled on top of eacht other, whilst the strength of real-time is actually it's more natural flow. As argued, Bioware back then simplified simpler AD&D Systems as their Inspiration was RTS games which they also understood and played in their Offices a plenty, in particular Warcraft/2. Meanwhile, nu-RTWP devs are mainly inspired by their table-top experiences, and then stuff their abstract table-top systems into a Format that they think/advertise is kinda like BG, woah!

* None of this in an Argument against any tabletop rules in Computer RPGs at all. It's not even an Argument against real-time. It's certainly not even arguing that the BG games got it alright. However, Kingmaker were an even better game were it turn based, different encounter design and adjusted AI and all -- and you can tell that the main system Designers at Obsidian personally have a big Preference for turn based also and secretly wish that if only they wouldn't have promised those damn Kickstarters a BG-alike.

 

[Saduj]

there's a reason why most shitty FB pay to win games were turn based

I don't even have a FB account, but wouldn't that reason be that each person can take their turn when they log in as opposed to players having to make arrangements for both being online at the same time?

It is about ease of access and has nothing to do with RTWP requiring more brain power. People used to play chess by mail and it wasn't because both players were too dumb to play Hungry Hungry Hippos.

 

[Mastermind]

there's a reason why most shitty FB pay to win games were turn based

I don't even have a FB account, but wouldn't that reason be that each person can take their turn when they log in as opposed to players having to make arrangements for both being online at the same time?

None of the ones I've played had battles with players that dragged on for days, you'd defend automatically and fought AI controlled enemies/players when you logged on. The real time games tended to be heavily tower defense based and battles were usually fought automatically.

I think the bigger reason was that it's much easier to make a game with low coding requirements in turn based than real time. AI for a full blown RTS is pretty demanding.

But also that women, who don't like strategy, avoid them, and most devs want a wider audience. Turn based is simply much easier to play for every cripple and retard than a game that requires some measure of efficiency and quick thinking on top of the tactics (and no, RTwP does not do much to ameliorate this because retards hate pausing real time games).

 

[Machocruz]

If Skyrim was a movie it would be one of the highest grossing films of all time.
Your concept of mainstream is strange.

Yeah right. How did that go for Warcraft? Even the majority of people who play games didn't even play Skyrim, let alone the entire movie going population across the globe. So it's entirely laughable to suggest DOS or X-Com had any mainstream impact. Get out of the forum and gaming media bubble.

 

[onemananadhisdroid]

But also that women, who don't like strategy, avoid them, and most devs want a wider audience. Turn based is simply much easier to play for every cripple and retard than a game that requires some measure of efficiency and quick thinking on top of the tactics (and no, RTwP does not do much to ameliorate this because retards hate pausing real time games).

Eh, any game is as hard easy as ist AI/encounters and systems. The one thing true in the above is that real-time requires a different skillset than Turn Based. F'r instance, if your hand/eye coordination ain't that Grand, you may suffer more in real-time, as anybody playing competitive multiplayer in RTS could also testify to. Some of that happens simply by an aging process btw. Similar though, somebody who lacks the requirements for ToEE, may find he gets his ass handed right in the first Encounters likewise (Actually, I'm confident you would find far more players who would give up on ToEE than any recent and current RTWP game). Likewise, I don't know about Deadfire's current state, but I barely had to do much in Deadfire at all when it was released. I could even ignore the fourth wall breaking skulls marking Areas supposedly above my level. Neither of which had anything to do with the game being RT or TB or anything naturally, and all to do with the overall balancing. By the end of my playthrough, Obsidian had already applied several patches nerfing items I thought they would nerf for sure.

 

[Mastermind]

Eh, any game is as hard easy as ist AI/encounters and systems.

Yes but everything being equal turn based is easier to play than real time, not just in interface agility requirements but also, like someone else said here, because you only have to focus on one character at a time.

In rtwp people suddenly "can't find their character" and become confused. Why they can't do what they do in turn based and just focus on one character at a time is beyond me. I guess the cognitive stress induced by having to click on each character portrait manually instead of being automatically looped through them is too much for the delicate machinery of the codex brain.

I could even ignore the fourth wall breaking skulls marking Areas supposedly above my level.

Could you ignore the fourth wall breaking panel with character faces on it at the bottom of the screen?

 

[Cross]

Contrary to popular belief, RTwP was never hugely popular, e.g. Icewind Dale only sold a fraction of what Baldur's Gate did. It would be more accurate to say that Bioware games were popular, and they continued to be popular even when they abandoned party-based RTwP. Neverwinter Nights was a single-character affair, and Kotor had such a terribly consolized interface for controlling the party that it might as well have been a single-character action-RPG.

 

[Jacob]

Turn-based gameplay is just a relic of the past and was necessary back then due to techincal limitations of the time. RTwP is an evolution of that but still just a stepping stone for the greater things to come.

By the time Dragon Age 2 came out, we started seeing what RPGs could truly accomplish with a fully actionized combat system that put you more directly in control of your character, thus enhancing the role-playing aspect of the game.

The obvious culmination of this progressing technology is a comprehensive virtual reality RPG that will be the ultimate Immersive experience the Gamers around the world have been waiting for. Skyrim VR shows us the potential of the genre in a way we couldn't have even dreamed of 20 years ago. With the advent of virtual reality gaming, we have come a long way from turn-based and party-based pen and paper simulations that, while historically important, are severely outdated and ultimately far behind the virtual reality games that are truly able to capture the meaning of "role-playing" that the genre is named for.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I think the bigger reason was that it's much easier to make a game with low coding requirements in turn based than real time. AI for a full blown RTS is pretty demanding.

This isn't true at a theoretical(theoretically they're both AI-complete problems) nor practical standpoint. Practically, people expect turn-based AI to be smarter than real-time AI and more capable of planning and 'thinking' ahead, with extra emphasis on watching what the AI is doing.

 

[Machocruz]

Contrary to popular belief, RTwP was never hugely popular, e.g. Icewind Dale only sold a fraction of what Baldur's Gate did. It would be more accurate to say that Bioware games were popular, and they continued to be popular even when they abandoned party-based RTwP.

Think it's often the case that many people see a game that intrigues them and they go along with whatever system is in that game just so they can experience the other things that stand out to them. They don't love the system, merely tolerating it or think it's just ok, not super fun.

 

[Mastermind]

I think the bigger reason was that it's much easier to make a game with low coding requirements in turn based than real time. AI for a full blown RTS is pretty demanding.

This isn't true at a theoretical(theoretically they're both AI-complete problems) nor practical standpoint. Practically, people expect turn-based AI to be smarter than real-time AI and more capable of planning and 'thinking' ahead, with extra emphasis on watching what the AI is doing.

Both real time and turn based AI can be programmed to, for example, lead a target, but only in real time is it actually mandatory. If the AI throws AOEs at a moving target without leading it'll be very easy to abuse. In turn based you can't avoid a fireball by moving the character out of the way while it's on its way (unless someone builds an extremely autistic game with very short turns where missiles take turns just to arrive) so the requirements are more simple.

In turn based you can restrict positioning (IE: blobbers) which greatly simplifies the AI cycle while still providing a solid tactical experience whereas in real time you can't.

In turn based you can split positioning into discrete tiles, which again, simplifies the AI cycle. Technically you can do this in real time too but it looks very awkward which is why I haven't seen any game do this since the 90s.

In turn based you can usually skip pathfinding, in real time you can't.

Maybe if you're trying to create the perfect AI the two would converge on an equally complex solution. But in my experience coding for real time has always given me a lot more headaches than turn based.

 

[what am i doing]

I don't think RTWP inherently has to be shit - most RTS games are technically RTWP after all, at least in singleplayer, as they generally let you pause and issue orders as much as you want, and most of them are fun and have good gameplay. But for some reason when an RPG is advertised as RTWP, it generally ends up being pretty shit. And I think the reason is that instead of designing good realtime combat that allows you to pause and fine-tune your orders and tactics as desired, they instead set out to take turn-based combat and make it play out in a way that looks realtime. And the result is generally pretty shit, it ends up being awkward and unwieldy.

Turn-based gameplay is great, but if you want real-time combat, even with pause, you should set out to make real-time combat from the ground up, with RTWP controls integrated into it. Not awkwardly try to present turn-based combat as real-time.

Mass Effect, as an example of how to do it right, was technically RTWP but they designed it to have good real-time third person shooting gameplay (not everyone liked it, mind you, but I found it pretty good, even if it was rough around the edges). It plays fine fully real-time; you can neglect to ever use the pause function and it feels like a standard real-time TPS. And that's how good RTWP should work. It should allow you to pause, give detailed party instructions, plan your upcoming actions, etc, for a better outcome in combat, but if you play it without pausing it should feel like a regular real-time game.

 

[passerby]

TB is preferred by simpletons that can't process more than one information simultaneously, no wonder it's normie friendly.

Classic RTS games used to have an active pause in singleplayer mode and were a mainstream genre in late 90s, this is why RTwP was a default for RPGs in late 90s and early 00s, most PC gamers were well trained in this kind of gameplay.

Current TB popularity is a result of catering to mobile, facebook and console mainstream gamer. I developed a hatred for these slowass modern TB games with long animations, where encounter of comparable depth takes 10x more of my time to play through, than in RTwP.

TB is good if the combat is not the main focus of the game, or when it's as in depth as JA2. Otherwise fuck off with this slow and banal shit boring crap.

 

[Butter]

TB is preferred by simpletons that can't process more than one information simultaneously, no wonder it's normie friendly.

This argument is fully retarded. You're only making one decision at a time in RTwP games. You're just doing it during a single pause. Then you unpause, pause, unpause, pause six times in 3 seconds so that you can issue the next set of orders as soon as your characters are ready. And that right there is the problem with RTwP.

 

[Quillon]

RTwP should be about movement, positioning, ambushes, contextual actions etc but ofc its wasted when everybody runs to each other as combat starts and it becomes about what ability/spell to use from then on.

There'll come a time when some dev will use it to their game's advantage instead of cloning TB systems with 4567 spells & abilities and run it in real time.

With RTwP there is a lot of room & different directions for improvement. With TB there won't be a lot better implementations than X-coms & DOS'.

 

[FeelTheRads]

I developed a hatred for these slowass modern TB games with long animations

Stop playing modern shit games then.

 

[adrix89]

RTwP isn't bad by itself.
The advantage it gives is simultaneity and speeds up big battles.
Where it fails is in implementing proper tactical principles like blocking,positioning, frontlines and backstabbing.

Like in any tactics games the party needs to be highly coordinated and synergize with itself.
In TBS the first turn is the most important, so too in a RTwP the most important is the initial setup when the encounter starts. If you get that right you get most of RTwP right.
In the middle of combat you only need to make only minor tweaks and adaptations to your initial strategy setup which is perfectly serviceable by the pause system.
An action queue system/bar like in KOTOR is also great to keep the pace up, preferably with waypoints and planners like in a RTS.

In RTwP the tactical depth you see in TBS with turn orders becomes the depth in timing things right.

 

[Sensuki]

In TBS the first turn is the most important, so too in a RTwP the most important is the initial setup when the encounter starts. If you get that right you get most of RTwP right.
In the middle of combat you only need to make only minor tweaks and adaptations to your initial strategy setup which is perfectly serviceable by the pause system.
An action queue system/bar like in KOTOR is also great to keep the pace up, preferably with waypoints and planners like in a RTS.

I disagree with all three of these statements and I think they demonstrate a lack of understanding of the RT medium

Real time combat places more emphasis on reaction, and the speed at which reactions are carried out. In non-action real-time games, you usually have the capability to cancel an issued command, so for example you might select your mage to cast fireball, but then the lich you're fighting starts casting Finger of Death, so you might cancel your Fireball and opt for a Protection spell instead, and have other characters try to interrupt the casting of the Lich.

The first 5 (or so) seconds of combat can be the most important in some encounters, often the case when there's a high chance of lethality straight off the bat. One combat that comes to mind is the Lamalha fight in Valley of the Tombs BG1 (http://forgottenwars.com/bg1/ar5000.htm). Walk into that encounter the wrong way at a low level and you can have a dead character very quickly. Important decisions might be to try and make sure your best AC character goes in first ('setup'), and that you interrupt the spells being cast by the spell caster enemies ('reaction', based off metagaming data).

I think RT combat is best and most exciting when the most meaningful/tide-turning actions can occur at any point during a combat.

 

[Shaewaroz]

Turn-based gameplay is just a relic of the past and was necessary back then due to techincal limitations of the time. RTwP is an evolution of that but still just a stepping stone for the greater things to come.

By the time Dragon Age 2 came out, we started seeing what RPGs could truly accomplish with a fully actionized combat system that put you more directly in control of your character, thus enhancing the role-playing aspect of the game.

The obvious culmination of this progressing technology is a comprehensive virtual reality RPG that will be the ultimate Immersive experience the Gamers around the world have been waiting for. Skyrim VR shows us the potential of the genre in a way we couldn't have even dreamed of 20 years ago. With the advent of virtual reality gaming, we have come a long way from turn-based and party-based pen and paper simulations that, while historically important, are severely outdated and ultimately far behind the virtual reality games that are truly able to capture the meaning of "role-playing" that the genre is named for.

People here don't understand sophisticated sarcasm, so don't bother.

 

[Kruno]

Lilura has a blog about these things.